I love Kevin.

For starters, Kevin grades everything with "spec" grading, which just means you have to meet a certain list of speculations to get a good grade. We discuss these speculations before each of our major projects is due, so everyone has an opportunity to tell him whether or not the speculations seem fair. The specs are pretty easy to meet, but if you don't meet them, you have a few "tokens" you can use to redo your work.

We have three major projects in this class, and none of them are that hard. The maximum around of writing you'll have to do for one of them is probably 1500 words, and even that's in a group project.

Kevin's class is the best ENWR there is. And pro tip: Don't actually call him Kevin. He worked for that "Dr." in front of his name. And that would be impolite.

Professor Smith is very reasonable, and the specifications grading system he uses made the class infinitely more enjoyable. It took the pressure off of making every single piece of writing perfect, which allowed me to grow my writing as the semester went on. The topic (Writing Charlottesville) was extremely interesting, and involved a good amount of ethnographic research outside of class. As long as you choose a place that is interesting to you, you'll get a lot out of this class. Prof. Smith is a very engaging professor and cares deeply about the success of his students! Definitely recommend visiting him in office hours. Highly recommend him to anyone!

I had to take this class to fulfill my first year writing requirement. Professor Smith made it very enjoyable and the subject matter was very interesting as we were able to focus upon a research project of our choosing. I genuinely enjoyed going to this class. The course does require a fair amount of outside work, but he gives you plenty of time and it's manageable.