Highly recommend taking this course. While there is a lot of reading, I found everything to be quite interesting so it wasn't bothersome. There was a weekly discussion post and quiz (for participation marks). The midterm and final consisted of writing timed essays about the topics covered. The essays were quite stressful to write given the time limit (1.5 hours for the midterm and 2.5 hours for the final), but they are open book/open note so just make sure you have everything organized!

You don't always have to do the all the readings because the weekly lectures summarize the content in the readings very well! Always take the quizzes before they are due even if you didn't watch the lecture or do the readings - if you get 0, it still counts towards participation.