Course Requirements / Grading

Class Format

In general the class will be divided into two major sections. The first, general presentation section will last about 40 minutes and include time for lectures, media presentations (we will spend a lot of time looking at political media of various types), and questions and answers. The second part of the class (approximately 35 minutes) will focus on small group activities in which I expect everyone to actively participate. These will include discussions, problem-solving exercises, and simulation games.

Get Acquainted E-mail

To make it easier for me to get to know participants in the class I'm asking everyone to send me a get appointed e-mail with the following information by next Tuesday, September 2.

• Full name
• Name that you prefer me to use
• Major / year (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior)
• Career aspirations Picture (if possible)
• Reason for taking the course
• Related courses that you’ve taken
• Anything else about yourself that you think I should know.
• Important: Code phrase (10+ characters, letters and numbers only) for your class grade page

Due Tuesday, September 2

Send to crc@.colorado.edu

Grading

Your grade for the course will be based on both class participation and written assignments.

Written Assignments – 64%

The largest part of your course grade, 64%, will be based on written assignments. Of this, 45% will be based on three "structured term paper" assignments with the other 19% based on three, open book quizzes.

Quizzes – 19%

Quizzes Replaced with "Things I Want to Remember" Assignment For those of you who were not in class on Tuesday, October 28 (and, for those of you who were) we decided to make a major change in the quiz portion of the class grade. While the first quiz will still count, the remaining two quizzes have been replaced with a do-at-home, "Things I Want to Remember" assignment which will be handed in as an addendum to the remaining two structured term paper projects. For this assignment I am asking you to send me your notes on what you see as most important insights that you learned from each set of readings (and related class activities). More specifically, I'm asking you to address a series of study questions, the first set of which are appended. As you can see, the study questions raise a general topic and then ask you what you see as the most important ideas related to that topic. I expect to receive about 200 words on each of about 6-8 study questions associated with each of the two "Things I Want to Remember" assignments. The workload should be comparable to what you would have spent preparing for the quizzes. You should feel free to write in an outline / short phrase, rather than sentence, format. Your notes can be quite informal as long as they are understandable. While your notes should demonstrate that you have read, understood, and thought about the material, you should also feel free to be critical and to explore the relationship between the materials and current events. I expect different students to focus on different things. As long as it's clear that you have read and understood the material, you can be assured of getting a "B." "A"s will be reserved for those who exhibit some fairly sophisticated and creative insights. See Schedule for Assignment Due Dates

The quizzes were discontinued after the first quiz and replaced with the above "Things I Want to Remember" Assignment
The quizzes are designed to give credit to those who attend class regularly, pay attention, take notes, and do the readings carefully (underlining the book and putting together cut and paste note files of electronic materials). It should be easy for you to use your notes and underlined book to answer the short answer and/or multiple choice quiz questions (which will take about 30 minutes three times a semester). While I don't believe in memorization for the sake of memorization, I do believe in encouraging you to develop "lookup knowledge."

In the first week or two I'll give you some specific examples of the kinds of questions that I'm likely to ask. The questions will be quite specific. It will not be possible for you to pass without doing the work. I will also curve the results to protect you from the fact that I might, inadvertently, make the quizzes too hard. Quiz make-ups will only be allowed for very good reasons and will involve an oral exam.

Structured Term Papers – 45%
The biggest part of your grade will, however, be a series of three structured term papers which will ask you to apply the ideas presented in class and in the readings at three levels: 1) society-wide political communication, 2) political communication with respect to a particular social issue, and 3) political communication with respect to a particular political campaign.

The focus will be on social betterment the application of the insights presented to do the task of, from your perspective, making things better (see section on political diversity below.)

The papers will be structured in ways that make them a bit like a take-home, short answer, test. You will be asked to write specific sections answering specific questions. These will not be major research papers. Almost all of the information that you will need to complete this assignment will come from readings and in-class activities. You will, however, need to find a few good outside sources on a political issue that you find especially interesting.

Structured term papers may be redone for a better grade provided that redos are submitted no more than two weeks after the original paper was returned.

Class Attendance, Discussion, and Activities – 36%

The second major component of course will be a series of in-class activities which require you to explore, develop, and discuss the basic insights presented in class and in the readings. Also included will be numerous simulation games to give you an opportunity to actually apply class insights.

Given the importance of these activities, I give those who attend and enthusiastically participate credit for doing so. In fact, it is impossible to get a decent grade in this class without attending regularly. If, for reasons beyond your control, you miss a significant number of classes talk to me as soon as possible about options for making up this crucial part of the course.

The 36% of your grade stemming from these activities will consist of three parts.

Attendance – 12%
I realize that everyone is likely to miss a few days for reasons beyond their control. For this reason I give everyone three free, no-penalty "sick days." (You are still required to get the notes for any classes that you miss). Those who miss up to three additional days (no counting religious holidays) can get full attendance credit by doing a make-up assignment provided that they make arrangements for doing so within a week after returning to class. Those who encounter more serious attendance problems should talk to me and we'll work out some appropriate arrangement.

Groups – 12%
The second part of you class attendance grade will be a group grade. Every three weeks I will randomly divide the class into groups of about eight who will, for those three weeks, work together on a variety of group activities. As I will explain in more detail in class, each group will be required to record (using a relatively standard meeting facilitation process) the ideas contributed by each participant. The group grade will then be determined by the number of ideas generated and by the general sophistication of those ideas.

Since group participants are likely to have very different overall course grades from one another, groups will not receive an absolute grade (A, B, C+, etc.). Instead, they'll receive a plus or minus grade. If a group does well, then everybody's grade will get a boost. If a group does poorly then everyone's grade suffers.

Individual Participation Grade – 12%
The final element of the in-class activities grade will be an individual participation grade which will bump up the grades of those who are enthusiastic, engaged, and insightful and lower the grades of those may be just coasting along for the ride or spending class time surfing the web, doing e-mail, working on other classes, text messaging, or otherwise not paying attention.

Personal Class Grade Webpage

All class grades and comments will be posted on your personal class webpage. Access to this page will be restricted to those who know your secret code phrase. I will either assign you a random code phrase or you can send me a preferred phrase as part of your “Get Acquainted E-mail” (10+ characters, letters and numbers only). The address for this personal webpage will be:

http://conflict.colorado.edu/comm3340/codephrase.shtml

Political Diversity

This class, by its very nature, addresses controversial political issues. After all, it is the processes of political communication that determine what we know about and, therefore, much of what we think about political issues. It's impossible to talk about the dynamics which affect these processes without taking a critical look at such communications. While I try to take a very balanced look at things, the very nature of the information discussed is likely to have political implications. After all the primary goal of the course better understand and more effectively participate in the political process. This includes improving your ability to see through the many efforts that are commonly made to manipulate political opinion.

While I may put it gently push students to consider alternative ways of thinking about things, I will not, in any way penalize students, on the basis of the political beliefs expressed in their work. Anybody who feels uncomfortable about any of these issues is encouraged to talk to me. You will find that I will be quite accommodating.

Apology for Voice Recognition Errors

I use voice recognition software because of problems that I have with my fingers. Occasionally, this results in spectacular and often inexplicable typographical mistakes. I apologize in advance. And, obviously, let me know if I've written something that is difficult to understand.

Communications 3340 -- Political Communication
Guy Burgess -- burgess@colorado.edu -- 303-492-1635