Smith, Daniel  

Dr. Smith from day one made me feel very welcome. He made sure every student had a voice. I never enjoyed an English class until taking one with him. He was funny, was always prepared and knew how to teach the material. He understood the needs of his students. He assigned 4 essays and they were all challenging, but interesting. The final was an in-class essay. He was not very good at giving feedback on essays, and most of the essays he never returned! But other than that, he was an excellent professor.

Awesome teacher. He is very interesting to listen to and is really good at making students thinking creatively. There were 4 essays, which you had to think about for a bit but were not really "hard" because they were interesting and fun to write about. I never enjoyed writing much but this was easily one of the most fun and useful classes I have taken in college so far.

This is the professor evolution I have ever given and it is because he is the best professor I have had at Cal Poly. He makes writing enjoyable and gave our class and essay prompt that gives you freedom for your final paper.

Smith is interesting. Essays were okay. Would recommend, even if it is a night class because he usually did not use up the full two hours.

This guy is awesome. He is hilarious and makes english very entertaining. He does a lot of reading articles and then responding/taking a stance type of stuff. I liked it because it helped to prepare us for the final (in-class essay) in which he gives us an article and we write our response. If you get this guy, you dog-gone won the jackpot. He also lets out early by approx 30 min every time so i appreciate that. thank.

Daniel Smith is soooooo entertaining and the best english teacher I have ever had. The guy is incredibly sweet and every class was a comedy show. His lectures were fun and very educational. I really enjoyed this guy and found myself sad when I couldn't go because I was sick. The papers were pretty easy although I still didn't enjoy writing them. Bottom line. Take Smith.

Dr. Smith is THE HOMIE. That's it. He legit is the sweetest guy you will meet here at Poly, he understands when you have other priorities as he does as well. He knows how to teach and how to make you WANT to learn, and not feel as though you're there out of force. I hate writing, I am awful at it but I went to his OH and he was good at letting me know what parts needed improvement and I fixed them and I ended with an A. All in all great professor 10/10 would recommend

This class was just ok. He was not my favorite English teacher that I've had, but he wasn't awful either. While Dr. Smith is a great guy and does sympathize with his students, I would not say that I grew much as a writer in his class. The lectures are sometimes boring and sometimes entertaining, and you always have to come to class. If you have a great set of classmates that are willing to participate in class, the lectures and discussions become much more interesting. Otherwise, it is kind of a struggle to get through class. Overall, this class is not extremely hard, but it's not an easy A either.

I like Professor Smith. He is a cool dude. He tells good stories and is funny and interesting for a professor. This class was fun, overall. We spent almost every class in a circle discussing people's fiction stories and reviewing them. We did two a day, until later in the quarter. Smith cancelled like 4 classes, which fucked up our review schedule and really penalized the students whose stories were being discussed at the end of the quarter. They ended up getting 25 minutes of discussion instead of the 50 everyone got earlier in the quarter. Smith was late when he did show up and was scattered. He'd say he'd post an assignment and never did. We only did two readings the whole quarter. I had wanted more from this class. I had wanted to do more short writings mimicking other authors like he said we would (we never did) and to read other published fiction stories. This class was fun, but it could have been a lot better. He's new, so I have faith he'll learn and get his shit together. He has the potential for a 4.0 professor.

Dr. Smith is the man. The way he designed this class is unique in that it makes it easy for the students to get to know each other throughout the quarter. He's really laid back and knows how to joke around. Overall the work load wasn't too bad, each assignment was interesting and helpful in the long run. Definitely recommend taking him for this course. He will help you become a better writer. He has a bright future ahead of him at Poly and will no doubt have a killer rep in a a couple years.

He seemed like he was going to be a good professor at the beginning of the quarter. But as the quarter went along he seemed more and more all over the place. In the beginning he assigns experiments to do and he said he was going to give them back to us, but he never did, blaming it on the way the school documents everything. The experiments are worth 10% of your grade. You get about a month to write a story which is then read later in the quarter. Once it's read, you have two weeks to revise it and turn it in to him. But by this time rolls around, some students didn't get their stories back for a week to two weeks after it was read in class. The story is work 20% of your grade. When you get your grade back, the grade isn't out of 100, its out of 10 with whole numbers, so 7/10,8/10, etc. But none of this was told in class, only once you get the story back. So you either got a 60,70, 80, or 90%, maybe even lower. He is a tough grader be warned. He comes across as a "cool" relaxed guy, but when he grades it's not relaxed at all. He warns people that unless you've already written stories, you probably aren't going to get an A, because those are for the gifted writers. He is always late to class. Participation and Professionalism is 30% of your grade. So that leaves a lot of room for fluctuation. The revision is also worth 20%, and you have to do an introduction to another's story 10%, and short responses to all the stories in the class 10%. And that's the class. Unless he complains about the administration again because he has to add something to his class. Unless you really like writing fictional stories and think you want to become a writer, I wouldn't take him, because he takes this class too seriously otherwise.

I'll first say that I'm an engineering major and writing is not my element. I had no idea how I was doing until I got a C+ at the end of the quarter. I NEVER got a graded copy of my story back so the class is over and I still don't know how well I did on it despite emailing him and asking him everyday in class about it. Smith showed up late to class everyday. He was once a half hour late to class. He is an absolute joke. I don't understand how he can care so little for his students. I took the class because I love fiction and I had been wanting to do something outside of engineering on my last quarter at Poly. I can now say that I wish I never took this class. If you are looking for a fun C4, take film directors or world cinema at all costs.

First, I want to say that I was very nervous about taking this class, because it requires not only writing a short story, but having it workshopped by the class. I've always avoided critique groups and the like because it's nerve-wracking to critique the stories of others and to sit in a group while others critique your work. However, Dr. Smith made the experience an extremely comfortable and good one. By the end of the quarter, I really understood the value of workshopping. Dr. Smith lays out expectations and assignments in a written syllabus at the beginning of the quarter. He stuck to the syllabus closely throughout the quarter, which I very much appreciated because it allowed me to work the reading and assignments into my schedule. He is very understanding and made himself available for questions. I think he has a great sense of humor, which made the class enjoyable. Lecture went quickly, and I learned a lot - I didn't realize before this class how much there is to know about writing fiction and how little I really knew. Dr. Smith gave great notes on my rough draft story, which helped to improve the final draft. I have heard some students complain about not getting their written notes back quickly, but I think this was an excuse for putting off work on the final draft, because (1) Dr. Smith gave the same notes verbally when the stories were workshopped and we had the opportunity to write them down so we could use them as we worked on our final drafts; and (2) he encouraged students not to wait for the written notes before starting to work on the final drafts - we had all the information we needed to do so as soon as our stories were workshopped. That having been said, I was fortunate to get my notes back right away and probably would have been bummed, too, if I hadn't. Overall, I really enjoyed the class and would recommend taking this class if you're serious about writing or even if you've just always wanted to give writing a try.

BEST TEACHER AT CAL POLY. It could have been because I had really outgoing, outspoken classmates, but this was the most fun class I have ever taken at Cal Poly hands down. Dr. Smith is the MAN. The class is done workshop style. Every week you write an "experiment" (aka. Write a paragraph of a made-up story while listening to soft piano music. Rewrite it while listening to angsty metal. Write a sentence using 1st person...2nd person...3rd person). They're super easy. NO TESTS EVER! THEN (my favorite part), everyone in the class writes a 7-15 page short story. ANY fictional topic. Print out copies for everyone in the class, and before each class you're supposed to have read and edited 3 stories. You spend the entire 3 hours in a big 'ole circle discussing each other's stories. It's both fun and scary to hear your peers critique your writing! We had a party the last day, if that tells you anything about how fun this class is. I wish I could take this class over and over again. Honestly, I probably will sign up for it again. DAN IS THE MAN

I have nothing bad to say about this class or Dr. Smith. He's a funny guy with a real Jack Black vibe. The class is very enjoyable and stimulating too. That being said, if you are looking to pass this GE requirement relatively easily with a good grade, this class is not for you. He grades everything on a 10 point scale and grades your story (which along with your revision, is worth a big chunk of your grade) pretty strictly. If you have a light courseload and can devote a good amount of time to this class, you should pull a B pretty easily. But if you are swamped, this class is gonna do you in the ass.

Amazing professor, probably my favorite professor at Cal Poly. He's funny, relatable, and extremely helpful when it comes to writing tips. The class itself was extremely fun, if you like fiction writing. We had assignments like taking notes of interesting things we saw throughout our days, or writing about what our 'utopia' would look like. It was so interesting to see how other people wrote and how they thought. Writing the big story was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed all the constructive criticism I received from it. It was so nice to have other students come up to me and talk about how much they liked my story, or how they liked this character or that one. Coming from someone who likes to write fantasy stories as a hobby, this class was a god-sent of advice and insight towards how other people write. Some people in my class wrote like gods; their writing style was so different from mine and so beautiful, so eloquent. It really made me realize just how different people can be. I absolutely loved reading everyone else's stories too; every story was different, had a different element, a different plot. This class was the only class I've ever taken that did not feel like a class; it felt like I was coming to some club that I loved. Professor Smith was extremely helpful, friendly, and kind. He never bashed anyone's story (even if they had terrible grammar or spelling), and always helped the author of the story to see how the plot could be improved. He was very inclusive and made discussion feel very open. Would definitely recommend this class for anyone who loves fiction writing.

He's a really fun teacher! His grading is a little abstract but fair (and that's kind of what you can expect in a creative writing class). I also like the communal feeling; you really get to know the people around you a little bit more than you would a normal class. He held a pizza party for the last class of the semester! All I would recommend is that you definitely start on the story when he gives you the cues -- the date seems really far away in theory, but it approaches so fast and suddenly you have to write 10 pages.

Daniel's class is a lot of work but really fun. He gives a really scary speech in the beginning of the quarter but it is not a pointless speech. You have to write a full fiction story by week five and then workshop your story with the other students. The first half of the class you work on your story independently and Daniel lectures on aspects of fiction that are meant to help. Personally, I found the textbook more helpful than the lectures. The second half of the class is workshop style going over people's stories. There are required responses for each person's stories and you must introduce another person's story. I wouldn't recommend taking this class unless you have an interest in creative writing. I hadn't written any stories in years and I was able to produce material that was sufficient to do well in the class (and really fun to write).