Here are some examples of projects that would be approved:
Attend a speech/panel/presentation related to a topic in our class. For example, Broward College hosts gubernatorial debates each year a new Florida Governor is elected.
Watch a documentary, televised political debate, or movie related to a topic in our class. Some examples include a live parliamentary debate in the House or Senate via C-SPAN, the PBS documentary “Zero Tolerance” (free on PBS), or “The Abortion Divide” (free on PBS). Netflix (subscription service required, although there is a 30-day free trial) has a lot of excellent documentaries on many different topics that we cover in this course.
Partake in a local election event of a party or political candidate running for Congress/Governor/President.
Partake in an event related to an interest group, such as Black Lives Matter, Environmental Protection advocates, Pro-Life/Pro-Choice advocates, etc.
Based on your selection, write a 750-1,000 words report that includes the following three sections:
A summary of the activity or documentary,
Examples of how it related to this class (including page citations and 2-3 quotations from the text), and
A concluding paragraph about what you learned.
This assignment is worth 100 points, so it carries a substantive weight of about 20% of your final grade. Keep the following guidelines in mind to avoid having points deducted from your work:
Category Guidelines
Activity Choice The activity or documentary selected is on a topic that we learned about in our course on U.S. politics. The instructor must provide approval. (Worth 5 points – pass/fail)
Minimum Word Count No fewer than 750 words
Maximum Word Count No more than 1,000 words
Format 1” margins
12 pt. Times New Roman Font (or Palatino Linotype)
Double-spaced (no extra spaces between paragraphs)
Summarizing, Quoting, or Paraphrasing In the first part of the project, you should use your own words to summarize your experience. When citing and quoting the text in the second part of the project, you must give proper credit to your source(s). Visit Purdue OWL: Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing for instructions on how to do this properly. Referencing someone else’s work also requires that you select a citation format – APA, MLA, or Chicago – and use that format consistently throughout your report.
Final Report Submit the final project in the corresponding Assignments dropbox. The report will be run through Turnitin, a plagiarism detection software. Visit the Academic Honesty section of the syllabus for our plagiarism policy. Your work must be a product of your own efforts. It cannot be identical or similar to another student’s paper. (Worth 95 points)
