8 pages

Journal Project

In completion of the research paper assignment, students will complete an 8 page journal.（Federalism, civil liberties, the political parties, elections, congress, the president, civil rights, The Constitution） This journal should be a log of important news stories relevant to the class. All news stories should be from the semester in which the student takes the class 2014.09.01.

Journal Requirements

8 full double spaced pages in Times New Roman Font with Standard Margins (if certain stories require more than a page to cover, that is fine, but each individual story must be AT LEAST one double spaced page)

Each page should cover one (1) story, related to (1) one class topic

The journal shall consist of eight (8) different stories covering (8) different topics

Each story used must be properly cited at the top of the page, using standard MLA or APA citation style. This includes the name of the author, story title, date of the story, and the name of the publication. Please see the Purdue OWL website for further help on citation style

For each story selected, students must not only explain the story itself, but also its relevance to the class topic they have chosen to coincide with the story

As this class focuses on American Government, stories chosen should relate to American events.

“Class topics” can be more simply understood as “Chapters” from the textbook. IE: Civil Rights is one topic. Civil Liberties is another.

“Rough Drafts” may be submitted and will be reviewed up until two weeks before the project itself is due

Journal Rubric

Student Name _____________________________________________

Journal is correctly related to 8 separate

class topics each getting 1 full page with each ________/40

entry also related to a relevant news story from the

current semester.

All news stories used are correctly cited ________/20

Acceptable use of grammar and punctuation ​​​________/15

Journal shows original content and an understanding of the stories and issues presented by correctly ​​​​​

________/25

relating topics to stories using textbook definitions and full explanations

Sub Total: ________/100

FINAL PAPER GRADE ________/100

A Sample Journal Entry

Title (Place the topic which your story covers here. Example: “Civil Liberties”)

Citation: Cite the source you are using for the story. For example:

Miller, Melissa. “Hospitals Prepare for Reform.” Southeast Missourian (Cape Girardeau MO) 18 Jan 2011: 1A, 9A. Print

In your first paragraph, explain the story. What you need to do here is show that you have read and completely understand the news at hand.

In your second paragraph, explain why the story at hand is an issue in the topic you have discussed. For example, if you were talking about Civil Liberties, and were discussing a story about prayer in school, you could mention that the story at hand was a question of government promoting religion in general, and thus a civil liberty issue through the establishment clause. The purpose of this paragraph is to show that you understand the topic as a whole and can relate a modern story to it. Literally tell me about the topic, and then tell my why the story relates to it. Define and then explain.

In your final paragraph, it would be acceptable to either A) explain your opinion on the story in question, giving a reasoned argument, or B) explain how the story could affect the topic at hand today and in the future. The purpose of this paragraph is to show your ability to apply what you have learned to the story, and show either your well reasoned opinion or ability to think about the topic/story in a forward manner.

Example:

The Congress

Tumulty, K. (2010, Mar 23). Making History: House Passes Health Care Reform. Retrieved Mar 6, 2011, from Time: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1973989,00.html

(Note: While this story is from 2010, yours will need to be from the class semester at hand. This is just an example)

This article, from Time Magazine’s website, discusses how the House of Representatives passed the Healthcare Reform Bill by a narrow vote of 219-212. According to the article, this piece of legislation is historic, not only because it represents a Democratic President finally taking the steps towards universal coverage (a goal they have long had but always failed to achieve) but also because of the potential ramifications on some of the Representatives who signed the bill. The article notes that this is a very controversial issue in American society, pointing to the days of protesting that went on outside the capitol, and concludes that many members of the House may find their jobs in jeopardy after this historic vote. While the bill will also need to pass the Senate to become a law, the article states that passage through the upper house is a foregone conclusion at this point, and that Obama should be able to place his signature on the bill soon.

While this story deals with many different topics, I chose to relate it to the Congress because this deals with the primary function of the Congress: making laws. The textbook notes that the process of turning a bill into a law is one with many steps and full of compromises, and this story shows that well. It discusses how anti-abortion democrats were refusing to vote with their party until the committee process had turned out a bill that was acceptable to them. The story also details the rest of the process of becoming a law, as the bill now has to pass the Senate and be signed into law by President Obama.

This is certainly a controversial issue that everyone has an opinion on, but for me, I feel that not yet enough is known about the proposed changes to really state what I feel on the issue. While I think it is certainly a good thing that this legislation will cover 32 of the 44 million Americans without healthcare, I’m curious about how the government is going to pay for these things. I’ve read that cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are going to be used, and I can’t help but wonder if that might be cutting off our nose to spite our face. I guess only time will tell as to how this all plays out. (Note, this is just a generic opinion and does not necessarily reflect the views of K Trent Howell)

This story could be about many different topics, here are some examples of how else I could have tied it to the class:

Federalism To relate it to federalism, my second paragraph instead would have focused on how the article discusses that this is the largest step by the federal government into the social welfare sphere since the 1960s, and discuss how this is an expanded role of the federal government now into regulating insurance.

The President To relate it to the President, my second paragraph instead would have focused upon how this was one of the bills recommended by the President at his state of the union address and how the bill must now be signed by the President to become a law, thus focusing on his role as the chief legislator.

Domestic Policy To relate this to Domestic Policy, my second paragraph instead would have focused on how healthcare is one of the dominate domestic policy issues of our time and how this was a step in the policy making process to address concerns with health care. The article notes that 44 million Americans are uninsured, and I could have used that statistic to demonstrate that this is a problem government was attempting to solve.

Political Parties To relate this to political parties, I would have mentioned that this shows how the parties often refuse to cooperate with each other when it comes time to solve problems. This bill passed the House without a single Republican vote, and was expected to do the same in the Senate. Furthermore, the article talks about Republican protesters outside the capital. This all leads to Republicans taking part in providing organized opposition to the party in power, which was listed as a function of a political party.