Assignment:
Semester Assessment: Social and Personal Responsibility
OBJECTIVE: This assignment has two key purposes:
1) to assess and develop the student's sense of social responsibility (i.e. cultural competence and civic duty);
2) to assess the student's sense of personal responsibility (ethical choices and consequences). Translation: you are demonstrating your capacity to understand others and your responsibilities to society.
BACKGROUND: One of the most important facets of a representative democracy is-unsurprisingly-REPRESENTATION. This assignment builds on a few key concepts related to the idea of representation-who represents us, how are we represented, andhow shouldwe be represented. In particular, we are building on the ideas of "descriptive representation" and "substantive representation." Here is a refresher on what this means:
Descriptive representation is the extent to which a representative resembles constituents. In other words, the focus here is on shared identity traits. A Hispanic person being represented by a Hispanic representative is one example. Or a miner who represents a district whose main industry is mining (and thus whose workers are predominantly miners). The key idea is that common identities are an important part of representation (occupation, gender, race/ethnicity, age, educational attainment, etc.).
Substantive representation is the actual activity of a representative. This means their view/values and how they actually behave in office (how they vote on legislation, what kind of legislation they author/support, etc.). From the substantive side, it is less important who they are. What matters is what they do.
PROCEDURES: You are about to link these concepts with your house representation(i.e. analyzing their identity traits and voting record). You will conduct this analysis by doing the following:
Websites/Navigation:
1) Go to this interactive map to find your congressional district: https://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/?PlanHeader=PLANc235
2) Once you have found it, go to Google and search for your congressional district. Terms like "Texas Congressional District" should work. Find the Wikipedia page for your district (yes, it's okay this time). Keep this page handy, you will need the demographic into at the top-right part of the page.
3) Next, navigate to https://www.house.gov/representatives/ and scroll down to your district number to find the name of your representative. Click on your representative's name (should be a hyperlink) to go to their congressional page (feel free to sign up for the email list). Keep this page handy also.
4) Now that you have the required sites up, you can start on the writing portion. IMPORTANT NOTE: You are largely being graded for how thorough you are in answering each part. This means that every letter (a, b, and so on) should be answered in 5-7 complete sentences and IN YOUR OWN WORDS. Just like the Discover Politics assignments-don't be lazy!
Writing Section 1:
1) Your first writing task is to compare/contrast your background with that of your congressional district (your community).
a. How would you describe your personal/cultural background? Be sure to note any aspects of your identity that are important to political values (race/ethnicity, parents occupation, parents education, household income, gender).Has this produced conservative, liberal, or moderate values?
b. Using the info from Wikipedia, compare/contrast the demographics of your district with your personal background. Be sure to include a comparison/contrast of your personal background (what you noted in section 4a above) and your ideology with that of your district. (Note: For ideology you will use the Cook PVIscore to make a comparison. "R+" means it leans Republican, "D+" means that it leans Democrat. Anything above a +10 is very liberal/conservative.)
c. Where do you see the greatest differences between you and your district? How might these differences produce contrasting political perspectives (If it's helpful, feel free to use example issues like taxation, immigration, abortion, voter ID laws, etc.)?
2) Your next task is to compare/contrast your background and values with those of your congressional representative.
a. Compare and contrast your background with that of your representative.Where is your common ground? Where are you different? Would you say that this is a strong descriptive representative for you?
Writing Section 2:
3) Next, explore your representative's substantive representation (i.e. values and voting record).
a. Using their official website, find a policy issue that your representative has taken a stand on (this will take some exploring, don't be lazy). Explain the issue briefly. Once you have explained the issue, provide information regarding the stance of your representative on the issue.
b. Compare/contrast your position with that of your representative. Where do you stand on the issue? Is your stance conservative or liberal? Next, try to articulate the opposing view. What might their objections be and what are the merits of their argument? Finally, respond to these objections while explaining-with logic-why your perspective is correct and theirs is mistaken.
4) Now that you have officially staked out a policy position, you need to think about how to get it put into action.
a. Who in the government OR community should be involved? What specific actions can you (and others) take? Why is it important to get peopleinvolved in this cause and what will be the benefits of this action?
5) Let's assume that you are successful in your efforts, and you achieve your policy goal. Now it is time to assess the impact of this potential change.
a. What do you believe will be the consequences of putting this policy into practice? How would this improve your community, state, and country?
b. What do you think will be the short-term effects (within the next year or two)? How about the long-term impacts (beyond 2 years)? Finally, what are some negative unintended consequences that might result from this course of action?