APLS 201b f2f American National Government

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? health care? reducing the size of government? welfare reform? abortion? prayer in schools? Involvement in other nations?) 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 are filled with many paradoxes. 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 a democratic republic for the next generation. My generation won't be around to do it. In a single generation, the republic 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. Hopefully you will also be interested enough to keep up with public events by looking at a newspaper every day as well -- that should be a habit of all educated people!

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 try to limit access to the internet. Your performance on the assignments 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:

1. Regular Exams (50%). We will have three tests, each covering about a third of the course. About 80% of the test will be objective multiple choice and true/false questions and the rest will be an essay question. I will give you a review sheet to help you prepare for the test. The grade for the essay portion of the test 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. Yes, grammar will count.

2. Reading Mastery Questions on the text using Blackboard tests. (25%). Each chapter in the text will have about 20 questions for you to answer using Blackboard tests. Your grade will be the percentage of these questions you get correct at the end of the semester. You may want to make a copy of the questions and have them in hand as you look for answers in the text. Hopefully, if you read the chapter before you try the test, as you should do, you may not even have to look them up. Alternatively you can print a copy of the text and then answer the questions on-line with the text in hand. Whatever works for you is ok. You are to do this on your own, not with help from anyone else except me! Everyone will have a slightly different set of questions in random order chosen by Blackboard from a large pool of questions for each chapter. I am allowing each of you to try taking each Reading Mastery Test THREE times (with slightly different questions using a random draw from a test pool) and then allow you to count the highest grade.

3. Writing assignments (25%). Nearly every class I will be posting some kind of writing assignment based on newspaper reading or some exercise relating to the material in the chapter. We will look at newspapers a lot because I have found that newspaper reading is the single best predictor of knowledge about government and politics. Finally to get full credit, you must include a citation for any article you use (please do not attach the article itself), complete it before class, and of course bring it to class to share. They will be graded on a satisfactory/marginal/unsatisfactory basis. Your grade is the percentage of satisfactory responses you make on-time. Marginal responses will only be given half credit. You will be allowed to drop your TWO lowest grades here.

Contact me at any time to find out how you are doing. You can email me or give me a call, or better yet, visit me in my office so that we can actually look at each other.

Attendance Policy:

Very early in the semester I'll make out a seating chart, so pick a seat you like and stick to it. This will help me learn your names more quickly (I am terrible at this and am trying hard to improve). It will also help me see who is absent on any given day. The university allows each professor design her/his own attendance policy, subject to the approval of supervisors. In the perfect world, the best policy would be no policy—you would come to class only if you want to come. I tried that a while back—and it was a dismal failure. Students simply missed too many classes and this totally disrupted the flow of the class. Then I tried a "carrot policy" and had much better attendance. So I'm going to continue that policy, but save one big stick for those who miss too much Here's how it works.

I will take roll each day by noting who is missing on my seating chart or by seeing who did not turn in written assignments. Attendance earns you bonus points on the exams. For each test you can earn up to five bonus points on attendance. Counting begins the day after the preceding test and continues through the next test.

perfect attendance ---- 5 bonus points
1 absence ---- 3 bonus points
2 or more ---- no bonus points

As you can see from the chart above, perfect attendance is worth half a letter grade on each test! And perhaps you may learn something while you are there that will improve your grade further--another extra added bonus!

For the purpose of bonus points, I do not distinguish between excused and unexcused absences--all absences count. If your absence is excused (with written evidence that you could not attend for reasons beyond your control--things like seeing your advisor or a routine doctor's exam do not count because you can reschedule those), you have the right to make up assignments. But you do not qualify for any bonus points. This may seem unfair to you--should you lose a bonus if you get sick through no fault of your own or because you are away on an official school function? That is certainly most unfortunate, but it is no more unfair than happening to be born into a poor family that cannot provide a good educational or social or economic boost.

Here is one more rule that fits into the stick part of the carrot and the stick. You MUST attend at least 75% of all the classes to pass the course. So for TT classes, which have 28 classes, that means that you must attend at least 21 of them, or put the other way, you can miss no more than 7 classes – the 8^th miss means an F for the course. For MWF classes there are 43 classes. So 75% of them are 33 classes, which means that you can have no more than 10 absences to get credit for the course. As with bonus points, all absences count whether excused or unexcused – excused just means that you have the opportunity to make up work missed that day.

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:

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 the text or from something on the Internet, you must use quotation marks and give a page number, for example (text 241). Other than this, you must cite sources.

Honor Code:

The USCA Honor code (On my honor as a USCA student, I have neither given nor received any unauthorized help on this work) is in effect for this course on all written assignments and tests. Anyone who uses the work of others on any of the tests, Blackboard quizzes, or written assignments will be in violation of the honor code, and I will not only give you a zero on the exam or homework, but I will also send a letter detailing your violation to the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs that will become part of your permanent record. I am really really serious about this because this course only works if students do ALL their own work.

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.

Cell Phone and Text Messaging Policy:

As a courtesy to others, please place your cell phone in silent mode or turn it off. I do not permit text messaging in class.

Junior Writing Portfolio Requirement:

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@aiken.sc.edu), Director of Writing Assessment, or Karl Fornes (karlf@aiken.sc.edu), Director of the Writing Room.