Overview
For this final project, worth a total of 100 points towards your final course grade, you are required to either 1) attend an in-person or virtual activity or 2) watch a film or documentary related to American politics; then write a report. Either choice (activity or film) is acceptable, so long as it is related to U.S. politics, a topic that has been discussed in some way during the course, and your instructor approves it. You must submit your choice to your instructor via the Assignments dropbox no later than the date listed in the course syllabus.
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) |