Week 11, Syllabus

Mr. Ditzenberger, American Government
Time: 5 Periods, 3:30 hours
Unit 2, Civics
Week: 11 Dates: October 22-26
Objectives:
1. Students will compare the beliefs and platforms of political parties in their home country and the U.S.
2. Students will create a political survey that covers a variety of issues-social, pol. (domestic & foreign policy), economic, & moral.
3. Students will learn what their own country requires for citizenship to be earned and maintained.
4. Students will evaluate the merits of the Plessy v Ferguson S.C. case.
5. Students will analyze the results of their surveys and synthesize what they know of pol parties with the results of their surveys.
Materials: Textbook, http://ditzenberger.blogspot.com/index.html; textbook, lectures, game materials.
Monday
Opener: explain the difference between someone on the left and right. Explain the difference between a classical liberal and a neo-liberal.
Complete political party chart.
Hmwrk. www.politicalcompass.org and http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html , bring a hard copy or email it to me. Due Tues.
Hmwrk. Read Chapter 18, Section 2. Complete #2-Categorizing, #3, a and b, and #4 (typed), Drawing Conclusions. Due Thur.
Hmwrk. Go to blog & quickly research your own country’s pol parties. Summarize the beliefs of your political party. Due Wed.
Tuesday.
1. Discuss results of surveys.
2. In partners, develop a 10-20 question political identity survey of your own. Find at least 15 people (10 Americans) and have them answer this survey. Bring the results to class on Friday.
Wednesday
Opener: Plessy vs. Ferguson
Citizenship Lecture
Citizen Video from Denver Post

Thursday
Opener: Reflect on: “It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.” Albert Einstein, & “Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.”
1. Turn in homework.
2. Citizenship Test
3. Interests Groups Lecture
4. Research citizenship in your home country and give a brief oral report tomorrow in class. Questions that should be answered include: does _______ allow dual citizenship, how can someone become a citizen, how can someone loose their citizenship, etc. Due tomorrow.
Friday-Analysis of Survey Results.
1. Qualitative Analysis-Do you think your applicants matched their political identity very well, fairly well, somewhat confused, very confused.
2. Quantitative Analysis-Choosing five questions, give a point for each question that they answered that parallels their political affiliation. Subtract a point for each answer that does not match or parallel their political affiliation.
3. Based on number two, which question(s) had the highest rate of dissonance (lack of parallel)? Why, in your opinion?
4. Based on number two, which question(s) had the highest rate of resonance (parallel)? Why, in your opinion?
5. What was the question that had the most drastic/extreme answers (one way or another) overall? Why, in your opinion?
6. Find someone else in the class that has a similar or the same question. Compare your results (based on two of the demographic factors [race, gender, etc].
7. Which answer showed the highest level of disagreement (variance) within a political party?
8. Based on what you know of the “left” and “right” description of politics, place eachs political party’s results on a left to right scale. Be sure to include a center on your scale. In other words, where did the democrats that you pooled, as a group, line up?
9. Were any questions difficult for participants to answer that perhaps could have been reworded or discarded altogether?