Assignment:
The nature of party's coalition: 70% of students will successfully research and evaluate the nature of each party's coalition and explain the positions they take on policy issues.
Activity for Assessment:
In the last section of the course, we examined the politics of policy issues.
In answering the question below, take the following two things into account:
1. The contrasting positions of Republican lawmakers and Democratic lawmakers on the various issues we examined.
2. The nature of the Republican Party coalition and the nature of the Democratic Party coalition. (Party coalition is the term for the groups that tend to support a particular party, such as the voting support that black Americans give to the Democratic Party.)
QUESTION: How does the nature of each party's coalition explain the positions that each party's lawmakers take on policy issues? In your answer, provide an example from at least three of the five policy issue sessions (the five sessions were: social issues, fiscal and monetary issues, welfare and income issues, regulatory issues, and trade issues).
Program-Level Objectives met with this assignment:
1: Communication Skills-to include effective development, interpretation and expression of ideas through written, oral and visual communication
2: Critical Thinking Skills-to include creative thinking, innovation, inquiry, and analysis, evaluation and synthesis of information
3: Personal Responsibility-to include the ability to connect choices, actions, and consequences to ethical decision-making
4: Social Responsibility-to include intercultural competence, knowledge of civic responsibility, and the ability to engage effectively in regional, national, and global communities
Course-Level Objectives met with this assignment:
5. Evaluate the role of public opinion, interest groups, and political parties in the political system.
6. Analyze the election process.
7. Describe the rights and responsibilities of citizens
8. Analyze issues and policies in U.S. politics