1. Attendance and active participation, including thorough preparation for each class: 10 + 10 %.Students are required to read the assigned texts thorough enough to contribute during class discussion. The texts will be available online on the course website or sent via email during the weekend before the class. Should you have any problems getting access to the texts by Sunday morning, let me know by email.
Students are also expected to closely follow current events pertaining to US domestic and foreign policy. It is expected that the students will read at least one daily U.S. newspaper - e.g. the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Los Angeles Times. Each class will start with a brief discussion of the latest developments in U.S. foreign and domestic politics.
2. Group project: 40%
Students are encouraged to create groups of two members for agroup project. Each group shall prepare an in-depth backgrounder on one of the presidential candidates, describing their position on key issues and controversies. The backgrounder presentation should be multi-media based - i.e. using text, links to videos, photos, newspapers articles, cartoons, etc.
For the presentation, the students are encouraged to use official resources, such as White House website (www.whitehouse.gov), opinion polls (e.g. from Gallup, Rasmussen Reports, Democracy Corps, Pew Research), official statistics (www.census.gov), or other media (e.g. online newspapers, YouTube, Facebook, etc).
All the backgrounders will be uploaded to a website.
The students are encouraged to discuss their presentation on regular basis.
3. Final exam: 50%
The final exam will include identification of basic concepts, short answer questions related to assigned readings and to student presentations as well as a short argumentative essay.
Poslední úprava: Sehnálková Jana, Mgr., Ph.D. (14.09.2015)
