Professor Koral is so sweet and obviously cares a ton about the course material. I (having little to no experience with either Yiddish or Jewish culture in the past) learned a ton and found the class quite fun!

Watching the films did feel quite tedious at times, as there was often 3-4 hours worth to watch each week. It was honestly more work than I thought it would be, especially because I took notes on all of the films (plot points, dialogue, etc.). However, the notes really came in handy for the essays and discussion in class.

Also, there were quite a lot of weekly readings, but I usually skimmed the history-heavy ones and did fine. There were a couple of stories/plays to read, and I read those more carefully and took notes (which I think paid off).

The grading scale was like this:
30% class participation
30% papers (3 of them)
20% quizzes
20% take-home final

I'm pretty sure almost everyone got the full class participation grade. The class each week is basically completely discussion-based, with tons of opportunities to speak your thoughts about if you enjoyed the week's film or other points. I'd say if you speak up once or twice each class you should be fine.

I thought the papers were pretty leniently graded. As long as you show that you really watched the films, thought about the essay prompt, and responded to the questions in the prompt your grade should be ok. She also really cares about things like grammar/spelling, so run your essay through a grammar checker or friend to double check that things are good. I'm not the best writer (I'm south campus major with rusty writing skills) but I did pretty well on the essays. The essays also weren't very long, they were each around 2 pages 1.5 spaced if memory serves.

The quizzes were probably the hardest part about the class, as there were often pretty specific questions from the slides in class or details about the films. Each quiz was ~10 minutes, and was comprised of 6–8ish multiple choice questions. I highly recommend you take notes on the slides as she goes through them (especially numbers or lists of facts, as some questions are directly taken from points on the slides), and taking notes on the films also helps a lot.

The take-home final wasn't bad at all IMO. There was an essay portion consisting of two short-response questions, each 1/2 page max. Our questions were more or less about what you got out of the class, and the questions were released at the beginning of finals week (and graded super leniently). The other part was 30(I think?) multiple choice questions, mostly asking about facts from the movies or general questions about Yiddish culture. They were pretty basic (especially if you took notes on the films) and there was plenty of time to finish them.

Overall this class was more work than I expected, but the work was more on the tedious side than difficult. It was an interesting class and some of the films were really enjoyable.