APLS 201 -
AMERICAN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
Summer I 2007
Dr. Carol Sears Botsch
This class is taught on the Internet
so no face-to-face classes will be held. All students will be subscribed to an
email discussion list at
apls2040@listserv.sc.edu using their USCA email addresses.
Tentative Schedule and Assignments
Office: H and SS C-5
Telephone: 803-648-6851, extension 3227
Fax: 803-641-3461
Email: Carolb@usca.edu
Office Hours: By appointment. I will check my email every day, and you can reach me by email, telephone, or fax - or we can set up an appointment to meet in person.
Credit Hours: 3
Text: American Government by Alan R. Gitelson, Robert L. Dudley, and Melvin J. Dubnick. Eighth Edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2008). This will be our primary text.
This is a general text that provides basic factual information about
American government in an interesting and readable way. The authors built two
interesting features into each chapter of the book: a "closer to
home" section that focuses on related concepts in state and local politics
and a "myths in popular culture" section that contrasts what many people
believe with often unpopular truths.
Every book that is written on American government has its own unique angle. One that we used in the past centered on the theme of "democracy in the making." It looked at our political system as one that began as an elitist democracy that has been undergoing gradual transformation into a more popular democracy. That is a reasonable historical and political interpretation of the U.S. Another book focused on how well we are equipped to meet the challenges of the future, challenges of a more interdependent world that we can no longer dominate so easily and of protecting an ever more endangered environment, to cite but two examples. From this perspective, America's challenge is that the government, designed in a time when life was simpler and when much less was expected of government, seems unable to make the necessary hard decisions or the necessary plans to meet these challenges. Fragmentation that results from split and divided powers has been excellent for preventing tyranny. However, it also prevents strong enough leadership from forming and acting except in the most severe crises. The complaints about "gridlocked Congress" stem from this structural reality. Another text defined the nation by the interaction among three things: our beliefs, our social institutions, and our political system. The author examined these interactions as they evolved historically and then concentrated on the question of how these interactions are working in the new "postindustrial" information based society that has been emerging since the 1960s.
You will see a little of all these themes in the Gitelson et. al. text. However, the central focus of the text is to get you to think about the common assumptions many citizens have about American government--MYTHS. This probably includes beliefs you have about government and politics in the U.S. Part of being an educated citizen is thinking through your beliefs rather than merely accepting them. College is supposed to produce informed and thoughtful citizens, not robots!
Course Objectives
1. To give you an opportunity to learn how the American political system actually works, as opposed to how you are often told it should work. To do this, there are many facts you should know, but they are not worth knowing unless you understand the forces that tie them together in a meaningful way. For example, understanding how a bill becomes law is a series of facts that helps us understand why the status quo is so hard to change, and that in turn helps us understand why we are so cynical about politics and politicians. Yet at the same time Congress plays other less obvious roles that explain why we elect and reelect most members.
2. To understand your role in our political system. You really have no choice in this matter -- you have a role whether you like it or not. Even if you refuse to pay taxes you will play a role--in the courts and in the federal prison system. You might as well know what your role is.
3. To understand the possibilities and limits on your own personal political activity. You can make a difference, although most of you would rather exercise your right to be a passive citizen. But to make any difference at all you must know the rules of the game. You must know how most things do get done in American politics.
4. To understand the relationship between the current issues of public debate and the biases that are built into our political system. Many issues that seem new and hot and new to you (tax reform? ethics in government? military spending? economic planning? balancing the budget? reducing the size of government? welfare reform? abortion? prayer in schools? what rights to give gay people?) are really old issues that arise in new forms because our political system is unable to solve those issues in any permanent way. In fact, that is part of the genius of the design of the system--it was made to allow evolving answers to difficult questions, answers to allow those losing today to hope they can win tomorrow.
5. To learn the fundamental values and ideas in the important documents that lay the foundation for our political system: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers. One of the most interesting aspects of these famous documents is how much conflict and ambiguity are built into them. They do not lay out clear guidelines that tell us how to answer the political questions that face us today. Much political conflict is over how to apply and prioritize conflicting principles built into the Constitution. Why are these conflicting and ambiguous principles important? As citizen leaders of tomorrow, your job will be to interpret and apply the fragile principles of democracy for the next generation. My generation won't be around to do it. In a single generation, democracy can be lost. That's a heavy responsibility. In a mere 40 years, virtually all the teachers and leaders of the nation will be gone. Those who are the young adults and children of today will be in charge. Think about it.
6. To learn why politics is so much fun to learn about, think about, talk about, and even write about. Every issue will have at least two answers, usually more. It's a lot less precise than mathematics, and that's what makes it frustrating and fun (two sides of the same coin). In fact, the ability to make political issues seem all very clear and simple is a powerful political weapon that people who are skilled at the art of political communication are always using on you. Hopefully, after this course, they'll have a more difficult audience.
7. To improve your own communication skills -- comprehending, writing, and using e-mail and the Web. Improved communication should be a goal of every college course. Communication may be the most important quality of an educated person. It is certainly a requirement for a viable democracy, whether it be a republic or a popular democracy. It is no accident that typewriters were not allowed to be owned by private citizens in Rumania or Albania before their rulers were overthrown. Communist leaders in China and Arab leaders in the Middle East try to limit access to the internet. Your performance on the assignments you e-mail to me will tell me how well you are achieving most of these communications objectives. When I see your evaluations of this course, I'll know how good a job I did in communicating the excitement of politics to you.
How Your Grades Will be Determined - I have given you some detailed information below, but please read and ask me if you have any questions.
1. Thought Papers/Exams (30%). Many on-line distance education (called "ode") courses require that students come to the campus or to some meeting point to take regular exams. We have built this course so that you can do the entire course in your own home or wherever you have access to a computer and an internet connection. Therefore, we cannot use the traditional objective type tests with true/false and/or multiple choice questions. Moreover, we cannot supervise any kind of closed book test. That leaves only open book essay examinations, which I no longer use, or thought paper/essay exams that require you to apply what you have learned in the text. On the dates announced in the course schedule, I will post the assignment on your course website. Each student will have 24-48 hours to write their essays and e-mail them back to me. The answers will be graded with comments. (Unfortunately, for reasons of personal privacy and federal law, the school will not let us email your tests back to you. But I will keep a copy here with the comments. You can either see me personally and obtain a copy of it or I can have the department secretary mail you a copy.) The grade will depend upon how well the essay used the factual information in the assigned reading material to provide a logical, well organized, and well written answer and applied it to answer the question. I may ask you to refer to an additional source for your answer. Each student will have a different question to answer on each test. So allow plenty of time for this, and do not tell me you cannot get it in on time because you had to work or had some other kind of commitment. You must plan ahead and manage your time! Yes, grammar will count--even on the internet in this case. I will subtract five points for excessive spelling and grammatical mistakes, so proofread your work. In many ways this is far more realistic than so-called "objective" testing. In the real world of politics, leaders and citizens must produce reasoned arguments and strategies in order to further their causes. And no one says they have to go without factual resources or answer some true/false question to succeed in real-life politics!
2. Written E-mail Assignments and Blackboard Test Mastery Questions (70%). One of the hardest things for teachers to do is to motivate students to read and think about the material before class. Getting students to keep up is one of the hardest parts in totally self-paced on-line distance education (ode). That's what this is all about. It involves three parts, not all of which will be done in every chapter: Blackboard test mastery questions (you will have to log in to the Blackboard website for this), discussion questions, and Web exercises (the two latter will be found on your class website as a link from the assignment for each unit, on the assignment page).
You should read the introductory comments that I have written for each chapter (see the link on the web page for each assignment or unit) and the chapter itself before answering the Blackboard test mastery questions or doing the other assignments.
A. On the beginning date of each chapter of material, all registered students will be able to log onto the Blackboard web site at https://blackboard.sc.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp - if you do not have a Blackboard user id and password, see the instructions on the assignment page. Each of you has a user name that is assigned to you and I have given you some instructions as to how to get started on the assignments page. Please click on that link as soon as you finish reading the syllabus, as you will have to get your user id and password immediately so you can get started, if you have not used Blackboard before. Each question will be worth one point.
B. The second part of each unit is a Web assignment. You will need to follow the instructions and click on the link to a web page. This portion of your assignment requires you to apply what you have learned and often, to see what real world application you can find. Again, click on the link to answer and type in your response to send it to me. This will be labeled as an Internet Assignment. Be sure to write "Internet Assignment 1" in the subject line when you send me your answer. Each question will be worth three points, and I will grade it as satisfactory (full credit), marginal (half credit), or unsatisfactory (no credit at all). Please use your USCA address unless there is a very good reason not to. If you have to email me from another address, be sure to specify in the subject line, so I don't delete it as spam.
C. The third item is virtual class discussions. I have created a discussion list to which each of you will be subscribed at your USCA email address, unless you are a non-USCA student. You will not be able to send email to the class list, or receive email, at any other address. The list name for this semester is APLS2040@LISTSERV.SC.EDU (note: as of this writing, the list is not yet set up, so please don’t try to email to it). I will post a question for each chapter. You just click on the response, type in your answer and it will go to all other members of the class. Then you and I can reply and our replies will go to all members of the class. If you have a private comment, send it to me at the carolb@usca.edu address. Feel free to begin a dialogue and to respond to what some of your classmates are saying. To get credit, you must reply to at least the initial question in a significant way. That means that you don't just parrot the answers of others ("I agree with so and so..."). Draw on what you read in the chapter, on my introductory comments, and on what you read and see in the news. Yes, you do need to keep up with the news for this class. Plan on reading a newspaper (paper or internet version), listening to the news on the radio, or watching the news on television every day! Each initial response will be worth two points - same grading scheme as above.
You must observe deadlines in order to get credit for your answers. If your computer goes on the fritz, you can fax me your work (803-641-3461) or hand-carry it to my office on campus. To protect yourself from electronic glitches and crashes, save electronic and hard copies of all your work. Then if all else fails, you can bring them to me and I can then give you the credit you so richly deserve for your hard work! For your electronic copies, use a new clean diskette that is devoted to just this course, or maybe some of you are using a flash drive now. Contact me by phone if you have computer problems or a personal emergency that cannot be avoided, such as a death in the family. The Internet exercises will be graded and I will respond to you by email. If you don't hear otherwise from me, you can assume that your discussion response was a satisfactory, as I have to be careful what I say on the class list. The Blackboard questions are graded automatically on the website - keep track of how many you get right and you can figure what your percentage of correct answers is. I'll try to give you a "heads up" halfway through - it's tough with our accelerated schedule!
DO NOT use attachments in your answers. They cause too many problems. Copy and paste your answers from a word processing program to your e-mail. I will delete all emails that have attachments without opening them!
At the end of the semester, I will compute this part of your grade by dividing the number of points you achieved into the total number of possible points. So, for example, if you had 36 out of 45 points, you would have a grade of 80% on that portion of your work.
Please note that while I will normally send written comments and grades on all written work within 48 hours of its due date, sometimes I can get behind. I'll try to use the list to let you know of any problems I have that affect the whole class. Tests may take a while longer.
Grading Scale
I will use a 10 point grading scale that works as follows: A: 90-100; B+: 85-89; B: 80-84; C+: 75-79; C: 70-74; D+: 65-69; D: 60-64; and F: less than 60.
Plagiarism and Honor Code Violations
Rules regarding PLAGIARISM apply to all written work. Depending on the nature of the work and the precise offense, the penalty for plagiarism may be as light as a failing grade for the work or as heavy as an F for the course. If you're not sure what this means, e-mail me! The one exception to required notation in this class is that if the material you write is obviously based on what is in the text, you don't need to reference it. However, if you do quote directly from or closely paraphrase (just change a few words here and there) the text or from something on the Internet (or any other source), you must use quotation marks and give a page number, for example (text 241). Other than this, you must cite sources. You should read the portion of the student handbook that describes Honor Code Violations. All honor code violations, major and minor, will be reported to my department chair, to the chair of your major department, and to the Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. You will receive a certified letter at your home address notifying you of the violation and of your right to appeal. See handbook or me for more information. The USCA Honor code (I have neither given nor received any unauthorized help on this work) is in effect for this course on all written assignments and exams. Students who collaborate with other students or any other person on exams or allow other students to look at their work will automatically receive a "0" for the entire test.
Disability Policy
If you have a physical, psychological, and/or learning disability which might affect your performance in this class, please contact the Office of Disability Services, 126A B&E, (803) 641-3609, as soon as possible. The Disability Services Office will determine appropriate accommodations based on medical documentation.
Junior Writing Portfolio Requirement (USCA Students only)
Please remember that the written work that you produce in this class can be included in your rising junior writing portfolio. For further information on the portfolio requirement, please consult your USCA Undergraduate and Graduate Studies Bulletin or visit Dr. Lynne Rhodes (lynner@usca.edu), Director of Writing Assessment, or Karl Fornes (karlf@usca.edu.edu), Director of the Writing Room.
Keeping up with the news is especially important in this course. Here are the urls for several major news sites:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/