Introduction to U.S. Government & Politics (POLS1100)

📝 Course Description

This course surveys the institutions and practices of the U.S. national government with emphasis placed on political institutions and political behavior.

🎯 Expected Outcomes

• Analyze major institutions of US Government and Politics in their origins and processes, as well as their conceptual interpretations, to provide a historical and analytical foundation for understanding the meaning and implications of participatory democracy.
• Analyze the dynamics of power in US politics and government and how it shapes such issues as knowledge and cultural production, privilege, identity, gender, political economy, religion, environment and/or race relations.
• Find, analyze, and contextualize information from a variety of political science source materials, including primary documents and online resources.
• Examine and evaluate US political issues and apply this knowledge to analyzing and participating in contemporary social dialogue.
• Formulate arguments about US government and politics and be able to express that argument clearly and cogently in writing.
• Work with others in collaborative projects as well as through participation in live and/or on-line discussions and demonstrate the ability to engage a diversity of viewpoints in a civil and constructive fashion.

📝 Course Syllabus

Click Here to download a full copy of this course’s syllabus.

✒️ Signature Project

Interest Groups affects on the U.S. Government Essay

🪞 Course Reflection

While writing this essay on Interest Groups, I feel that many of the tools and strategies can be used to supplement the learning ongoing in other classes. The ability to identify the Interest Groups that affect policy making, analyze the potential implications of the policies, and formulate opinions on whether or not the policies that the organization poses are beneficial to our society as a whole has allowed me to gain a more complete understanding of the Interest Group & Lobbying process. While there are interest groups that have reach into almost every industry tying the paper even closer to other avenues of learning, I think that having such a wide-scoped question has allowed me to work through the process of drafting, editing, and finalizing my paper better than the experiences that I have had in other classes.

While writing this paper, it was important to me to select an Interest Group that I felt had made meaningful change in the causes that I can align with - while it can be powerful to understand something from someone else’s point of view, I was concerned that reading, digesting, and summarizing legislation for a group that I may be overly complicated for the essay. Once I had my Interest Group selected, I was able to find information about the group - how much they spend on lobbying and supporting candidates, what legislative changes they proposed, and what the expected outcomes of that legislation would be. After that was completed I began writing the first draft, trying to lay out the topics in an order that flowed most naturally in my mind - starting with an introductory paragraph about what I was trying to cover, and then following with subsequent paragraphs of tertiary support of experiences that helped lead into the next topic that I wanted to cover.