PLS 105 syllabus

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SYLLABUS

Course: Political Science 105, §1, Introduction to American Government (fall, 2015)

Instructor: Craig Curtis (Bradley Hall 426B), 677-2492, e-mail: rcc@fsmail.bradley.edu

Required Texts: Lowi, Theodore J., Benjamin Ginsberg, Kenneth A. Shepsle, and Stephen Ansolabehere. American Government: Power and Purpose (13th ed. 2014) W. W. Norton & Company, New York. ISBN: 978-0-393-92244-8

Class meeting times: MWF, 10:00 to 10:50 am, Bradley Hall 220

Instructor's Office Hours: Monday: 8 to 10 am; 2 to 3 pm, Tuesday: 8 to 10 am, Wednesday, 2 to 3 pm, Thursday: 1:30 to 3 pm

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 discussion of current issues will be a regular part of the course. 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, where class lecture or discussion covers current events, such discussion will be incorporated into the examinations.

This is a general education course (social forces) as well as a course that provides the introduction for political science majors and minors. It is my belief that the course meets the obligations of both purposes. For those of you who are curious about our general education program, the following is taken from the university’s official general education website.

Social forces (SF) courses address the mutual interactions between various constituents of society and should help students develop skills for understanding and coping with the changes and dynamic forces at work in contemporary society. Desired outcomes include:

· present a well-established body of theory and empirical evidence

· gain broader perspective helping them to understand the interdisciplinary implications of the subject being studied

· understand contemporary society and an individual’s place in it that is grounded in theory and evidence

· develop skills for understanding and coping with the changes and dynamic forces at work in contemporary society

· gain a shared vocabulary, methodology, and body of factual information that will give them entrée as citizens, voters, consumers, and participants in community affairs into the current debates about social forces

· focus on one or more dimensions (historical, social, political, economic, literary, ideological, aesthetic or intellectual) inherent in every cultural system

· gain knowledge of theory and capacity to conduct objective analysis

· develop familiarity with one or more social, political, and/or economic theory

· understand the relevant body of evidence/data that underlies social, political, and/or economic theory

· participate in exercises and discussion that help them analyze evidence and apply theory to society and the individual

· make connections between the course discipline and other related sciences

· make connections between the theories presented in the class and the current social issues of the day.

The fact this course is a general education course does not mean that it should be easier than other courses or that it should be only a basic course, with more rigor reserved for courses taken by political science majors. The fact that this is a general education course means that it should be quite rigorous as it may be the only course that a student takes in political science and that student’s preparation to be a productive and involved citizen may rely heavily on what is learned in this course.

Grading: The final grade will be based on the following:

1) 1 take home assignment, given during the course of the semester, worth 30% of the final grade.

2) 2 short current politics essays, of approximately 600 words, the first worth 10% of the final grade and the second worth 15% of the final grade.

3) A comprehensive final exam, given as a take home assignment, worth 35% of the final grade.

4) Class participation in the form of being the designated “expert for the day,” 10% of the grade.

The final letter grade will be assigned according to the following scale:

A 90-100%	D 60-69%
B 80-89%	F below 60%
C 70-79%

Guidelines for the completion of all of the assignments will appear later in the syllabus.

Teaching Style: Two basic concepts drive my decisions regarding the conduct of this class. These are intellectual curiosity and academic freedom. Intellectual curiosity drives us to understand as much about the world as we can. 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. Often I will be the one who will advocate, for purposes of discussion, an unpopular idea. Just because I advocate for a position does not mean that I am advocating for my own personal point of view. I am not interested in conveying my own personal policy preferences or in changing your personal ideology. I am interested in making both conservatives and liberals pay more attention to facts as a way of making them more intellectually honest. If you hold a particular position, then make sure that you have a good factual basis for doing so. I will strive to avoid having my personal policy preferences influence my grading.

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.

The class sessions are 50 minutes long, which is far too long to listen to me without interruption. The class sessions will consist of short lecture segments, coupled with discussions of how these concepts apply in the real world of American politics. The more you talk, the less I will talk. That means you must be prepared by having read the text assigned before class. That means you must have paid attention to the news that day. I will post lecture outlines in power point form before class sessions meet.

Each day for most of the class sessions in the semester, two students will be designated as experts for the day. Their job is to make doubly sure that they have read the course materials and to ask questions about how what we are talking about in the lecture is related to current news stories or current policy issues. Most importantly, they will be responsible for making linkages between the news of the day and the assigned readings. The designation will be made in advance of class – students will be notified the week before. If you are not the designated expert, you can still ask questions any time you please. It is not my intent to punish those who are not policy wonks. Rather, it is my intention to make sure that I don’t talk without pause for 50 minutes. Grading for this part of the course grade will be relatively lenient but you must come to class the days you are assigned and you must come prepared.

Class policies:

All students are required to have read this syllabus.
All students are required to follow current events in the news. It is part of the assigned reading and I will assume that this knowledge exists in running the class sessions and creating the take home assignments. If you do not regularly follow current news, you will find that the take home assignments are almost impossible to do. You can’t cram for them – you must maintain currency to succeed on these assignments. You will also struggle with the current politics assignments as you will lack context to evaluate the significance of the news events in question.
All students must access the Sakai course management website for this course. I will post weekly lecture outlines and assignments to you via this medium, as well as send e-mails and announcements that may be of use to you. You must use the assignments function to turn in all assignments. I will use the “turnitin” software to check for problems with originality. I will use the drop box function to return graded assignments to you.
All assignments are due when listed in the syllabus. Late assignments will be penalized at the rate of 10% of the grade for each day late, unless prior arrangements have been made with the instructor. Please note that the final take home assignment must be turned in on time. Per university policy, there can be no exceptions to this rule.
All due dates for written assignments listed on the syllabus, except the final take home exam, are subject to change if the needs of the class so indicate; any changes will be made by the instructor in consultation with the class.
Individual variances from class policies can be granted under certain circumstances if the student makes advance arrangements, especially if needed to accommodate religious holidays or official university travel. I do understand that students occasionally have a real and unforeseeable emergency. In such situations, variances can be made after the fact if the emergency is well documented.

Course Outline

What follows is the order in which we will proceed. As is obvious from the outline, we will usually follow the order suggested by the authors of our main text.

Day I (Wed 8-26) Introduction to the class/What is social science?

Day II (Fri 8-28) Philosophical Basis of Government – Democracy and the Five Principles of Politics, Text, Ch. 1

Day III (Mon 8-31) The Founding and Structure of the Nation, Text, Ch. 2

Day IV (Wed 9-2) Separation of Powers, Text, Ch. 3

Day V (Fri 9-4) Visit from the Career Center

Day VI (Mon 9-7) Federalism/ How State and Local Governments Work

Day VII (Wed 9-9) The Judiciary – Appellate Courts, Text, Ch. 9.

Day VIII (Fri 9-11) Civil Liberties, Text, Ch. 4

Day IX (Mon 9-14) Film – “Kennedy v. Wallace”

Day X (Wed 9-16) Civil Rights, Text, Ch. 5

Day XI (Fri 9-18) Race and the Criminal Justice System

First Current Politics Essay due

Day XII (Mon 9-21) Congress, Main Text, Ch. 6

Day XIII (Wed 9-23) More on the Congress

Day XIV (Fri 9-25) –Founder’s day – no class!

Day XV (Mon 9-28) Policy discussion – Congress, Taxes, Debt Ceilings, Fiscal Cliffs, and Jobs

Day XVI (Wed 9-30) The Presidency, Main Text, Ch. 7

Day XVII (Fri 10-2) Should we dissolve the Electoral College?

Day XVIII (Mon 10-5) More on the Presidency

Day XIX (Wed 10-7) The Executive Branch: the Bureaucracy, Text, Ch. 8

Day XX (Fri 10-9) The Regulatory Bureaucracy

Fall Break

Day XXI (Wed 10-14) Revisit the Judiciary: The Trial Courts

Day XXII (Fri 10-16) Revisit the Judiciary: the Supreme Court, Text, Ch. 9

Day XXIII (Mon 10-19) Restraint and Activism, and the role of interest groups in the judicial appointments process

Day XXIV (Wed 10-21) Public Opinion, Main Text, Ch. 10

Day XXV (Fri 10-23) More on Public Opinion – why do we care so much about polls? First take home assignment due

Day XXVI (Mon 10-26) How to Make Sense of a Public Opinion Poll

Day XXVII (Wed 10-28) Elections, Text, Ch. 11

Day XXVIII (Fri 10-30) Is it rational to vote?

Day XXIX Mon 11-2) Political Parties, Main Text, Ch. 12

Day XXX (Wed 11-4) Parties and Ideology in the US

Day XXXI (Fri 11-6) Interest Groups, Text Ch. 13

Day XXXII (Mon 11-9) Why people join interest groups – applied micro-economic rationality

Day XXXIII (Wed 11-11) What do taxes buy us and what is a public good?

Day XXXIV (Fri 11-13) The Media, Text Ch. 14

Day XXXV (Mon 11-16) Media and democratic theory

Day XXXVI (Wed 11-18) The Economy, Ch. 15

Day XXXVII (Fri 11-20) More on the Economy

Day XXXVIII (Mon 11-23) Things about fiscal policy, debt, and taxes that will scare you Second current politics essay due

Thanksgiving break

Day XXXIX (Mon 11-30) Political Culture and the Welfare State, Text, Ch. 16

Day XL (Wed 12-2) What to do about entitlements – OASDI and Medicare?

Day XLI (Fri 12-4) Foreign Policy, Text, Ch. 17

Day XLII (Mon 12-7) Review for final

Day XLIII (Monday, 12-14) Final take home assignment due at 2:00 pm. No late exams will be accepted.

Summary of Due Dates

Take Home Assignments	Current Politics Essays
First Assignment due on Friday, 10-23, at 5:00 pm	First essay due on Friday, 9-18, at 5:00 pm
Final Assignment due on Monday, December 14, 2015 at 2:00 pm, no late assignments can be accepted.	Second essay due on Monday, 11-23, at 5:00 pm

Grading Rubrics

I will use grading rubrics for all written assignments. Most of the feedback you will get from me will be from these rubrics. These rubrics will be posted at the time the assignment is made, so you will know as you do the assignment what is expected. If you think that I have misapplied the grading rubric after you receive a grade, wait until the next day and then contact me (any of my errors of addition should be brought to my attention immediately). I will gladly consult about a grade. I need to do so after some of your anger has dissipated.

Guidelines for Completing the Take Home Assignments

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.

For each of the take home assignments, you will receive 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. 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 basic facts and concepts, and look for the ability to skillfully apply those facts and concepts.

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 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.

In writing all of your assignments in this class, I expect that you will fully document your sources. You cannot use MLA format because recent changes to MLA style do not provide for the listing of URL’ for web sites, making MLA pretty much useless for the social sciences. You must use the American Political Science Association format or some other generally accepted social science format. A pdf file of the APSA Style Manual is posted on Sakai. You should rarely use a direct quote in these assignments. If you do, then make sure you first try to convey the thought without the quote. If you absolutely must quote someone else’s words, then make sure you fully document the source.

All assignments are to be turned in electronically using the assignments functions in Sakai. Ideally, you should attach word files, but you can also use rtf, txt, or pdf files (although I do not like pdf files because I can’t edit them). We will be using the “turnitin” anti-plagiarism software. That means that everything must be in a single file. I will allow a second submission of all assignments so that you can use this software, but the final submission must be before the due date. The originality report will be available to you, but does not show up immediately. I encourage you to turn in assignments early, get the turnitin report, and then use it to avoid potential problems. I know that many of you will find things on the web to use in your essays. That is fine, but you must fully document the sources and you must avoid the temptation to simply cut and paste text from the web. Do your own work.

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, the grading rubrics I will use will contain criteria for organization, presentation and use of the language. 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 once you are out in the real world you will be judged b the quality of your written work and oral presentations, and often harshly. Please take the time to edit your work carefully and use a spell check.

Guidelines for the Current Politics Essays

During the course of the semester you will expected to turn in a total of two essays of about 2 pages each. Each essay will be written in response to a news story and associated focus question that I will post on Sakai a minimum of one week before it is due.

All essays are to be turned in electronically as word files using the assignments functions in Sakai. As with the take home assignments, we will use turnitin. If you want access to your originality report before you finalize an essay, turn it in early and check back for the report before finalizing the essay. I will allow two submissions of the assignments, but the final submission must be before the due date.

All outside sources must be documented using APSA or some other social science citation format. MLA is not acceptable in this class. You will be tempted to use direct quotes in these assignments. Try not to do so. I want your words, not a list of quotes. Very few college students use direct quotes appropriately. A direct quote should never be used unless the language quoted itself is absolutely essential to convey the intended thought. When in doubt, don’t quote. If you must quote, you must never do so without full citation.

As with the take home assignments, the grading rubrics will include presentation, organization, and use of the language. Please take the time to edit your work carefully.

Experts for the Day

All students will have two days on which they are a designated expert for the day. Each day that employs an expert will have two students assigned, and you should work together in preparation for this job. Your job is to make sure that you have read the assigned readings for that day, along with a careful review of the relevant current news stories. Then the two of you should make explicit connections between the news and the readings. Write these down as I will want to hear them in class. I will make the assignments once the roster finalizes in week two and post it on Sakai. I ask that you take this seriously. If you aren’t prepared, I will be able to tell and will assign a grade accordingly. If you will not able to complete your expert of the day assignment because of a pre-existing commitment, I need to know that early in the semester so I can arrange an alternative day. Inevitably, someone will blow this off and a person could be faced with going “solo” on their day as an expert. If this happens, take it as an opportunity to really shine.

Academic Dishonesty Policy

Any instance of academic dishonesty, e.g., cheating on exams or plagiarism of term papers, will be dealt with as severely as university rules allow.

You are expected to do your own work on all written 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 a term paper you did not write, e.g., one you bought or copied is plagiarism as is cutting and pasting text from a web site without the use of quotation marks and the provision of full citation.

I am well aware that there are Web sites with papers that you can download and have the ability to check to see if a paper comes from such a source. I am also aware that many high school students learn to write papers by cutting and pasting text from web sites. Whenever you use language written by someone else, you must fully credit the author by a complete citation. Try to limit the use of direct quotes in any event. I want your words, not a bunch of quotations.