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Course: Political Science 105, sections 2 and 3, Introduction to American Government (Fall, 2007)
Instructor: Craig Curtis (Bradley Hall 486) ph. 677-2492, e-mail: rcc@bradley.edu
Home Page: http://hilltop.bradley.edu/~rcc/
Required Texts: Bardes, Barbara A.,
Mack C. Shelley, and Steffen W. Schmidt (2006).
American Government and Politics
Today: The Essentials.
Mattern, Mark (2006). Putting Ideas to Work: A Practical Introduction to Political
Thought.
Class meeting times: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 10:00 to 10:50 am (section 2), 11:00 to 11:50 am (section 3), Bradley Hall 250
Instructor's Office Hours: Mon, Wed. 9 :00 to 10:00 am, Tues. & Thurs., 10:30 to 11:45 am, Tuesday, 1:30 to 2:45 pm (Afternoon office hours to take effect after Labor Day)
Description: This is an introductory course in the American political system. It is designed to provide a thorough understanding of the institutions and processes of American politics. As such, daily events in the news will provide fuel for the class. The functioning of a democracy depends upon the existence of a well informed populace, and the lectures will include reference to current issues in the news. The daily reading of a newspaper is strongly urged, and regular access to some reputable source of news is required for this class. I will assume basic knowledge of current events, and knowledge of current events will be needed to complete the assignments for this class.
Grading: The final
grade will be based on the following:
1) 2 take home assignments, each worth 30% of the final grade.
2) 3 short current politics essays, of approximately 600 words, each worth 10% of the final grade.
3) 1 policy day discussion, worth 10% of the grade.
The final letter grade will be assigned according to the following scale:
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A 90-100% |
D 60-69% |
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B 80-89% |
F below 60% |
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C 70-79% |
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Guidelines for the completion of all of the assignments will appear later in the syllabus. Note that high quality class participation is likely to have a positive impact on one's final grade.
Class Philosophy: Our goal in this class is to make sense of actual events in our political system. We will attempt to relate theory and practice on a regular basis. Consequently, all students are strongly encouraged to ask questions about any aspect of American government at any time. It is frequently a good way to begin a class session. Students are required to have read the assigned readings before the class sessions for which an assignment has been made. Students are also required to be familiar with the significant news stories of that week.
Academic freedom means we may question virtually any idea and that we many say virtually anything so long as we say it in the quest for knowledge. All I ask is that personal attacks be avoided. Criticism of ideas is essential; personal criticism of colleagues is unnecessary and counterproductive. I will make every effort to protect those who advocate unpopular ideas in this class.
I will provide power point slides containing my lecture outlines to you in advance. These will be posted in the digital drop box area of Blackboard. Most Fridays will be set aside for discussion and I will not use a prepared lecture outline for those days. On ten of those days, we will look at current policy issues from the point of view of the assigned reading in the Mattern text. I consider it part of your assigned homework to keep up with the news.
Frequently I will use words and introduce concepts with which you are not familiar. Stop me if you do not understand! It is likely that others are also confused, and you will help all of us if you interrupt to ask questions. I urge you to force me to define words and explain concepts in ways that you understand. After all, our purpose in being here is to learn as much and as well as we can. I am here to help, but the ultimate responsibility for your education rests with you.
Class policies:
What follows is the order in which we will proceed. As is obvious from the outline, we will follow the order suggested by the authors of our main text. You will also find a wealth of information to supplement the text in the “e-mocracy” supplemental materials listed at the end of each chapter of the main text.
Day I (W 8-29) Introduction and housekeeping matters
Day II (F 8-31) An Introduction to Political Philosophy. Mattern, Introduction.
Day III (M 9-3) What is a Democracy? Main text, Chapter 1
Day IV (W 9-5) What do the terms
“liberal” and “conservative” mean in
Day V (F 9-7) The Tragedy of the Commons in American Politics. Mattern, Chapter 1
Day VI (M 9-10) Limited Government, Main text Chapter 2
Day VII (W 9-12) Checks and Balances and the Value of Conflict in our System
Day VIII (F 9-14) What is Civic Virtue? Mattern Chapter 2
Day IX (M 9-17) Federalism, Main
text, Chapter 3
Optional Draft of First Current Politics Essay due
Day X (W 9-19) Civil Liberties, Main text, Chapter 4
Day XI (F 9-21) Racial Inequality, Mattern, Chapter 3
Optional Practice take home assignment due
Day XII (M 9-24) More on Civil Liberties
Day XIII (W 9-26) Civil Rights, Main text, Chapter 5
Day XIV (F 9-28) Film, “Kennedy v. Wallace.”
Day XV (M 10-1) Debrief of “Kennedy v. Wallace.”
First Current Politics Essay Due
Day XVI (W 10-3) More on Civil Rights
Day XVII (F 10-5) De Facto and De Jure Discrimination, Mattern, Chapter 4
Fall Break
Day XVIII (W 10-10) Public Opinion, Main text, Chapter 6
Day XIX (F 10-12) Public Opinion: How to Interpret the Results of a Poll
Day XX (M 10-15) Interest Groups, Main text, Chapter 7
First take home assignment due
Day XXI (W 10-17) Political Parties, Main text, Chapter 8
Day XXII (F 10-19) Who was Thrasymachus and why does he help us to understand campaign finance? Mattern, Chapter 5
Day XXIII (M 10-22) Campaigns and Elections. Main text, Chapter 9
Day XXIV (W 10-24) Campaign Finance
Day XXV (F 10-26) Legitimacy in American government, or why we need for people to think well of the government, Mattern, Chapter 6
Day XXVI (M 10-29) Regulating the Media
Day XXVII (W 10-31) Congress, Main Text, Chapter 10
Day XXVIII (F 11-2) The importance of Private Property, Mattern, Chapter 7
Second Current Politics Essay due
Day XXIX (M 11-5) More on Congress
Day XXX (W 11-7) The Presidency, Main text, Chapter 11
Day XXXI (F 11-9) What is democracy and is the American model the only way to have it? Mattern, Chapter 8
Day XXXII (M 11-12) More on the Presidency
Day XXXIII (W 11-14) The Bureaucracy, Main text, Chapter 12
Day XXXIV (F 11-16) Media, interest groups, and political “noise,” Mattern, Chapter 9
Day XXXV (M 11-19) More on the Bureaucracy
Thanksgiving Break
Day XXXVI (M 11-26) The Courts, Main Text, Chapter 13
Day XXXVII (W 11-28) More on the Courts
Day XXXVIII (F 11-30) The potential to alter policy outputs through political participation, Mattern, Chapter 10
Day XXXIX (M 12-3) Policy Making, Main text, Chapter 14
Day XL (W 12-5) Economic Policy, Competing Visions of Reality
Day XLI (F 12-7) The Welfare State
Third Current Politics Essay due
Day XLII (M 12-10) Foreign Policy, Main Text, Chapter 15
Day XLIII: Section 2 (10 am class)
Final take home assignment due on Tuesday, 12-18, at 2 pm, in my office.
No late assignments will be accepted.
Section 3 (11 am class) Final take home
assignment due on Monday, 12-17, at 11 am, in my office. No late assignments will be accepted.
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Take Home Assignments |
Current Politics Essays |
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Optional Practice Essay due on Friday, 9-21 |
Optional Draft of First Essay due on Monday, 9-17 |
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First Assignment due in class on Friday, 10-15 |
First essay due on Monday, 10-1 |
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Final Assignment- Section 2 (10 am) Tuesday, 12-18, 2:00 pm* |
Second essay due on Friday, 11-2 |
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Final Assignment - Section 3 (11 am) Monday, 12-17, 11:00 am* |
Third essay due on Friday, 12-7 |
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* Per university policy, these dates cannot be changed and no late assignments will be accepted |
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The true test of whether a person knows something is their ability to apply that knowledge to solve a problem. Analytical skills, so very vital to remaining competitive in today's information age economy, are necessary to apply existing theory to novel situations. Additionally, analytical skills are not innate, they must be developed through training and practice. These are the principles that have guided my choice of evaluation technique for the take home projects.
The take home assignments consist of a set of problems from which you will choose items to which to respond. Each assignment will require you to write two essays, each of two to four pages in length. The essays must be printed on a word processor. Because the type of skills required to succeed in this type of assignment must be honed by practice, an optional practice exam is already posted under course assignments on Blackboard. If you choose to avail yourself of this opportunity, you must write an essay of approximately 500 words and turn it in to me in class on Friday, September 15. I will grade it, and make detailed comments with an eye towards helping you improve your work. Of course, I will be glad to meet with you to discuss your essay while you are preparing it, or after you have received my feedback.
It is my firm belief that anyone of average intelligence can memorize details. What separates the good students from the ordinary ones, and those who are successful in later life from those who merely survive, is the ability to manipulate knowledge of concepts in creative ways to solve complex problems. In order to do that, you must use the concepts to solve a problem, describe and explain a real or hypothetical political situation, or predict what will happen given a specified set of events. You are required to apply concepts to meet the goal of political science, which is to describe, explain and predict human behavior in the political arena. Thus, in grading essay items on exams, I assume knowledge of current events, basic facts and concepts, and look for the ability to apply that knowledge.
Your opinion and analysis are not equivalent. Political science is based on rational, dispassionate analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, informed by theory. I want your opinions to be informed by rational political science analysis, but experience has taught me that they are not always so informed. Your opinion is what you feel. It is informed by emotion and faith as well as by rational analysis. Your opinion is important to me as a citizen. It is irrelevant to me when I grade your work. What matters is the quality of your analysis.
One final thought: Although this is not an English class, the only tool you have to convince me of your skills and knowledge is the English language. As such, I will mark a paper down for having obvious errors of grammar and usage. Common errors include, among others, misspelled words, subject-verb disagreement, sentence fragments or run-on sentences, misuse of homonyms, failure to use the apostrophe to signify the possessive, ending of sentences with a preposition, failure to use proper punctuation (e.g., failure to place a question mark at the end of an interrogatory sentence, or failure to properly use quotation marks), and use of the four letters "A," "L," "O," and "T" taken together as a word. I do this because I assume a college student knows the rules of grammar and usage and take the appearance of obvious errors of grammar and usage to be evidence of lack of effort. Please take the time to edit your work and use a spell check. Because anyone, including myself and the authors of your textbook, can overlook a typographical error or two during proofreading, the first three errors will not count against you. Please edit your work carefully.
During the course of the semester you will be required to turn in a total of three essays of about 2 pages each. Each essay will be written in response to a focus question that I will post on Blackboard a minimum of one week before it is due. The focus questions will be based on a current news event, and the assignment will include access to a specific news story or other documents.
The essays, including the first draft option, must be printed on a word processor. My previously stated policy on errors of grammar and usage applies. I will mark you down for failure to follow the rules of grammar and usage of the English language. You should never directly quote language without full citation to the source. You should also refrain from using direct quotation in most written work, unless the language itself is unique and essential to conveying the message.
The first assignment is due in class on Monday, October 1, 2007. You have the option of doing a first draft of the assignment, which will be due on Monday, September 17. I will grade the draft, make comments in the margins, and return it to you in time for you to make revisions before the October 1 due date. You may choose to keep the grade assigned to the draft, or you may choose to rewrite the essay for a better grade. In no instance will a revised essay be scored lower than the first draft. You will have a minimum of one week after I return the drafts to you to revise the essay. You are encouraged to take advantage of the rough draft option.
Plagiarism will be punished as severely as university rules allow. Please read the academic dishonesty policy found below.
Guidelines for Your Policy Day Discussion
During the semester we will spend most of our Fridays on discussion of policy issues, using the theoretical frameworks provided in the Mattern text for our analysis. I will assign small groups (3 or 4 students) of the class to be responsible for having knowledge of the chapters and related issues assigned on each of the Friday discussions. I will post the group assignments on Blackboard after the first two class sessions, when I am more certain of who will be in the class. Your job will be to speak up when called upon in class. In order to prepare for this job, you will need to make sure you have read the assigned chapter carefully and thought about how it applies to current issues in the news. Consultation within the group would make a lot of sense. The evaluation will be based on how well you can articulate your analysis. It will be hard for a student who has prepared well to do poorly on this assignment, but easy for one who has not prepared, or is not in class, to earn no credit.
You are expected to do your own work on all assignments. Plagiarism will be punished as severely as university rules allow, i.e., a zero for the paper will be awarded and the matter will be reported to the Chair of Political Science and the Executive Director of Housing, Residential Life and Student Judicial System.
Plagiarism, according to the Random House Dictionary of the English Language (unabridged edition), means "appropriation or imitation of the language, ideas and thoughts of another author, and representation of them as one's own work." Any of the following examples of academic dishonesty constitutes plagiarism:
1. Directly copying a phrase, sentence, passage or paragraph from another author and presenting it as one's own (i.e., without proper quotation marks and full citation. You are assumed to know how to properly use quotation marks and citations).
2. Paraphrasing a sentence, passage or paragraph from another author without so indicating by proper citation to authority. When in doubt, cite!
3. Knowingly presenting, as one's own, a thought, idea, analytical framework, or theory advanced by another author. Turning in an essay you did not write, e.g., one you bought, copied, or downloaded, is plagiarism.
I am well aware that there are Web sites with papers that you can download, and have caught several students over the years. In addition, Bradley is a subscriber to more than one online academic honesty service. Do not attempt to pass along obscure web content as your own work. I have all the tools needed to detect this.
Any attempt to secure the exclusive use of library resources, i.e., hiding or removing from the library any books or journals, or intentional destruction of library materials, i.e., cutting out articles, will be punished severely. Your grade on the review essay will be reduced and the matter will be reported to the library and to the Executive Director of Housing, Residential Life and Student Judicial System. You will be held liable for repair or replacement of the materials.