Rochelle Gatlin

I really liked Rochelle's class because she had the most interesting stories to tell about immigrants of the past. Sometimes she did get side tracked and would get off topic though. Rochelle really enjoys discussing modern day politics and issues concerning immigrants.

There are small weekly assignments to turn in that cover the readings and there are two essays. She does expect you to put effort into your work.

She is sympathetic to the needs of the students and is always available during her office hours.

I took Dr. Gatlin for Western Civilization and was not only amazed at how much she knew, but at how much I learned! Her methods may be a little old fashioned, but the subject matter and ideas she is able to evoke make up for it. Very nice lady. Well-rounded.

Dr Gatlin deserves an A+ for many reasons, first,she a very knowledgeable teacher that passes on her knowledge to every student who is there to learn. Personnaly I learnt a lot because of the way she teaches her material, she wants students to learn since there are in her class. If you enroll just to get it(History 9) out of the way then may be Dr Gatlin's class is not the best choice ( you can still get a good grade even if you're not passionate about History). But if you are interested in HISTORY and want to know about it then may be reading is something you might want to do , and that's all Dr Gatlin requires from her students. I took a handful of history classes, hers stands out as the most interesting one. Some students complain that the material is overwhelming. But that's not her fault. I strongly recommend this class for anybody who's not afraid of reading and learning alot. Homework is abundant but is consists of just reading the already available material, and then there is a couple of take home essays that you have many weeks to write. Overall excellent teacher extremely interesting class/material.

Very intresting clss. Dr. Gatlin knows the subject very well. All her assignments tell you exactly what she expects from you. The reading assignments are not as bad as they seem.

Immigrants in American History is one of the best History classes I took in my college life. Dr. Gatlin's background knowledge on this suject matter is outstanding. Her lecture is full of related useful information. Course format is excellent as well. She has an excellent way of keeping students busy throughout the semester. There's a lot of reading in her course. However, she makes the topic interesting. I would recommend this course to anyone.

I could not dissagree more with the first four reviews. I feel that they are utterly un-fair and even mean. Dr. Gatlin is an extraordinary professor, and my favorite so far at the CCSF (I completed eight different classes so far). She knows her material very well and she's passionate about it, thus spilling her enthusiasm onto the students (at least that was the case in my class). Her lectures are interesting, dynamic, entertaining, and well organized. Her command of the language is superb - she's a talented speaker. The syllabus is well structured, and organized in such a way to really help and encourage the students. She's extremelly clear about what she expects from the students, and the comments above only indicate that someone was too lazy even to read the syllabus! Her grading is nothing but very fair. In grading the required essays, she takes time and spells out everything that might need more work, thus giving you the opportunity to improve. From my experience, many professors don't take time to do that, they usually just write "nice, good" or something like that. And yes, grammar counts, but halooo, is this a College or a Kindergarten?! Are you in College to learn something, or just so that you can bitch and moan? English is my second language, and writting an essay in English is not the easiest thing for me, but still - I was able to get an A- for the first essay, and after studying her comments I was able to improve my second essay and receive an A for it. And so, in this way, she also helped me improve my English and my writing skills, which will undoubtedly be very helpful with my future classes. And I'm grateful for that! All the exams are on the lectured material, or on the assigned reading. The exams are in reality fairly easy, as long as you do your reading. There is a lot to read, but the two books she's using for the class are pleasant to read (especially Moss), and are not dry at all. I never read anything more then once, and I was still able to do really well in the class. I learned a lot from her class, and I really feel that this knowledge will continue to serve me well in the future. I can only highly reccomend her to all prospective students, regardless of whether they are interested in History or not. After taking Dr. Gatlin's class you will be interested. And yes, even though she MAY be cranky some days (but, halooo again, who isn't cranky sometimes?!) she's always willing to meet with a student and help. She's a dedicated professor. And she answers her e-mail promptly! And I detest the comments about her age - she is older, but not that old - besides, her age is just an added quality to someone who teaches History - she applies her lifelong experience and wisdom to her lectures, and not just dryly recites from the textbook. Believe me, she has a lot more energy then many of the students.

Dr. Gatlin is an excellent teacher for a student who takes school seriously and really wants to learn. Students who complain are the ones who don't read the syllabus, dont do the assignments and just want an easy class. Most of the students criticizing her never even rated her office hours because they probably don't know them and never thought of going for help they would rather complain.

Gatlin is a woman with an awesome background. She has strong views, but she really gives you something to think about. She will help you if you make the effort to go to her and talk and show that you are trying.

If you dont want to read or think, don't take Gatlin. But if you want to learn history and are willing to do some work, Gatlin is a great choice.

She doesn't believe in computers, so emailing her late assignments are out of the question. You can't even reach her via email because she doesn't know how to use it, she would rather receive morse code. There are a lot of ghetto people on teacherreview who write shit that you can't understand, so I will try to be as unghetto as possible. Her class is actually fairly easy. You dont really need to do all the reading, just skim through it. Turn in all the homework assignments even if they are half done. Some credit is better than no credit, and she offers tons of extra easy credit at the end of the semester. She is a cranky woman, but she is liberal in her beliefs and if you suck up just a little, your experience won't be as bad as the others below had. But boy is she cranky. She doesn't remember anyone's names at all and you have to watch boring videos and listen to boring lectures. And there is always that one older person in the class who jots down everything she has to say and right when class is supposed to be let out, Ms Gatlin will ask if there are any further questions, and that one woman will ask so many questions you have missed your next class. What I'm trying to say is: don't ask questions unless its on your own time, you will make the class be there for hours longer than necessary. Stick through it and do all your homework, just don't piss off the cranky old teacher.

Dr. Gatlin has a tendency to go on tangent after tangent about unimportant details of something that happened and then never has time to actually discuss the material we are supposed to be learning in class. However, she does not change her tests so you can expect a number of questions on the tests are not from the material in the book or from discussions. You can get good grades on these tests but you must read all of the material in the book carefully. Do not expect to gain any further understanding of the material from the lectures. This class does not work like that.

Your grade is divided into 3 midterms (one of which is your final) and two essays. You have a choice of topics to write your essay on, however, she does not go over in class what she is looking for in grading your essay except that she expects you to site material from the books. She does grade your essay on grammar so you may want to make sure you have taken English 1A before you take her class. She is also notoriously late at getting graded tests and essays back to the students. You can expect it to take two weeks for something graded to be handed back.

You are expected to read about 100 pages or so out of the textbooks each week and there will be an extra credit quiz every Monday. Some of the questions on the quiz are from the reading and some you just have to guess on. These questions do appear later on the midterms, which might be the only good thing about this class. Once students have taken the quizzes, Dr. Gatlin will spend the next 15 minutes trying to exchange the quizzes with other students so that each student is correcting someone elses quiz. She has no order for doing this and there are inevitably quizzes left over at the end and she will get very flustered and upset. This is the most ridiculous part of the class and a huge waste of time.

Dr. Gatlin is also one of the crankiest teachers I have ever had. She is one of the older teachers at CCSF and is very much like a cranky grandmother who cant be bothered with questions she feels as though are stupid. She will forget that she has not explained part of the material and then get very upset when students ask questions about it, usually going on a tangent half way through the explanation and never fully answering the question. If you do the reading very carefully on your own and really understand the material, you can still get an A in the class providing you are also a very good writer.