Class record · ENGL · MCAS

ENGL 1735

The Meaning of Boston: Literature and Culture · 1 instructor on record · 4 sections

What the course score is made of

95BC evaluations4 records · weight ×1.0 · Fall 2022 – Fall 2023

—Student reviewsno reviews — does not contribute

—RateMyProfessorsno ratings — does not contribute

That is the class itself, averaged across everyone who taught it. Who taught it, and how each of them scored, is the board below — that is what a student picking a section is actually choosing between.

What the challenge rank is made of

71stMore challenging than 71% of BC classesranked against every one we hold

94BC — “Intellectually Challenging”4 records · raw score out of 100

Boston College's own “intellectually challenging” question for this class only — students answer it positively about courses that stretched them, so it measures intellectual challenge and NOT grading, workload or quality. Almost every BC class scores high on it, which is why it is shown as a rank rather than a score.

What the workload rank is made of

78thMore work than 78% of BC classesranked against every one we hold

60BC — “Workload”4 records · raw score out of 100

Boston College reports workload for this class only as one of five bands, not as a number of hours, and it does not publish what the bands mean — so this site will not translate it into hours. Higher means more work, which is not the same as worse.

This is an Enduring Question course and is open to FRESHMEN only. You must take both ENGL1735 and HIST1630. How does a city -- this city in which we find ourselves -- create meaning? Meaning flows through a city just as populations, capital, power, resources, and ideas do, and each of these flows conditions the others. In this course, we will consider what Boston has meant in different moments and to different people as we think about the forms of literary texts, how they express meaning, and their relationships to the historical moments in which they took shape and/or seek to capture. We will also consider the local in relation to national and international events and artistic movements. Throughout the semester, our discussions will move beyond the received meanings and standard tropes of Boston -- the accent, the city on a hill, the regular-guy mythos retailed by Hollywood -- to explore questions that Boston has consistently raised about human beings and nature, race and class difference, the form and function of the good life, the double-edged quality of moral causes, and the contest between the persistence of old ways and the succession of new ones.

The only instructor on record

4 sections · nobody else has taught itFull record

Instructor	Overall	Workload	Challenge	RMP overall
Carlo RotellaProfessor · English	984 records	78th	71st	1006 ratings · all classes

There is no ranking to read here: Carlo Rotella is the only instructor with evaluation records for ENGL 1735, so the number is a record, not a position. The RateMyProfessors figure is their overall score across everything they teach, not their score in this class.

Also taught by Carlo Rotella

6 other classes

Class	Instructors	Course score
ENGL 1010First Year Writing Seminar	136442 records	80
ENGL 1079Literature Core for Multilingual Students	1340 records	89
ENGL 2133Studies in Narrative	1634 records	87
ENGL 2172Imagining the City	12 records	95
ENGL 4550Topics in Creative Nonfiction: Writing for Magazines	12 records	99
ENGL 7020Experimental Writing for Scholars	12 records	100

Other ENGL classes

All of them

Class	Instructors	Course score
ENGL 1010First Year Writing Seminar	136442 records	80
ENGL 1080Literature Core	90257 records	80
ENGL 1079Literature Core for Multilingual Students	1340 records	89
ENGL 2221Introduction to Creative Writing	936 records	90
ENGL 2133Studies in Narrative	1634 records	87
ENGL 2131Studies in Poetry	1333 records	84

The line

All 13 items · means across 4 records

The Professor4 items

Clearly Explains MaterialThe instructor was effective at creating an understanding of difficult subject matter.

9775th pctl

Available Outside of ClassThe instructor was available for help outside of class.

9670th pctl

Brings Out Your Best WorkThe instructor motivated me to do my best work.

9672nd pctl

Sparked My InterestThe course stimulated my interest in the subject matter.

9882nd pctl

The Course3 items

Well-Organized CourseThe course was well organized.

9783rd pctl

Clear Learning GoalsThe learning objectives for the course were clear.

9681st pctl

Useful Beyond the CourseWhat I learned is applicable beyond this course.

9242nd pctl

Assignments & Feedback3 items

Assignments Help You LearnAssignments and exams contributed to my learning.

9788th pctl

Gives Feedback PromptlyI received feedback on my work in a timely manner.

9463rd pctl

Meaningful FeedbackThe feedback I received on my work was meaningful.

9572nd pctl

Workload, difficulty & attendanceNot ratings

WorkloadHow much work the course took outside class, on Boston College's five-band scale — the band boundaries are not published, so this is not a number of hours.

6078th pctl

Intellectually ChallengingThe course was intellectually challenging.

9471st pctl

Attendance MattersAttending class was necessary to do well in this course.

9886th pctl

Bar length is the rank against every comparable record we hold, not the raw score: BC's questions all have a median around 4.5, so a raw-scale bar would be nearly full on every row and would tell you nothing. Every bar is one ink colour — nothing here is graded green or red. The hatched bars are not ratings at all: a higher number on either describes a different course, not a better one.

Game log

4 sections · newest first

Instructor	Term	Sec	Instr	Course	Work
Carlo Rotella	Fall 2023	01	99	96	—
Carlo Rotella	Fall 2023	02	99	95	—
Carlo Rotella	Fall 2022	01	96	93	60
Carlo Rotella	Fall 2022	02	99	95	60

How to read this boardInstructors are ranked on their record in this class only, never on their average across everything they teach. Scores are out of 100 — Boston College's 1–5 agreement scale, ×20, the way these numbers were printed for years. Workload is BC's own five-band figure, not a number of hours, and is shown as a rank. A dash means the question was not reported, and is never a zero.