Web Board Assignments                           Return to top	Learning Objectives: Effective communication, community awareness, ethical responsibility After our weekly meeting, you may begin work on your WebBoard assignment. Each week, WebBoard assignments must be completed by midnight Thursday. I will typically grade these assignments on Friday. The grades will come in the form of replied to your postings. Late assignments will receive a deduction of 10 points. The typical length for these assignments should be in the neighborhood of 300 to 600 words. The WebBoard assignments will account for 1/3 of your grade in this course. They are unique because your postings are available for everyone else to read. The WebBoard is a public space. Anybody with an email can sign on. This means, of course, that you can read each other's posts. I would encourage that; for some exercises this will be quite necessary. These assignments are described in the reading schedule given below. If, for any reason, you miss class to Tuesday, then you follow the WebBoard assignment as indicated in the syllabus. If you have any questions about the WebBoard assignment, please contact me. Is it permissible to draw on other students' ideas in formulating your own responses to our WebBoard exercises? Yes, but you need to give credit to the author (who, in this case, is a fellow student). Whenever you do this, you must mostly paraphrase the other person's ideas. Direct quotes should be kept to a maximum of one sentence. Academic Honesty and Web Board Assignments: I would also warn you that it is hard to cheat using the WebBoard. Let's say that you decided to make a copy of someone else's assignment and post it as your own. Since the WebBoard indicates exactly when a particular post was uploaded to the board, it would be simple to determine who posted first and who second. The obvious conclusion would be that the second posting was the copy cat. Then you would stand accused of plagiarism and your case would be referred to the Dean of Students.
Community Involvement Project                                                                 Return to top	Learning Objectives: Community involvement Much of the academic work that we will do in this course is about community awareness. Our focus will be on the national community and various local communities, including those located in Southwest Florida. Community involvement, however, will require moving beyond the classroom. You will be required to engage in some sort of community involvement project. You will have the following options: Do a service learning project. You can receive service learning credit for the project and course credit too. One particular project that I would encourage you to consider is participation in a study circle organized by the group Lee County Pulling Together. There are many other service learning options to consider as well, some of which might be quite relevant to your field of study or to your personal interests. You can search available service learning placements on the web. Go to http://itech.fgcu.edu/cgi-bin/606/list.html in order to search available service learning placements. For information on FGCU's service learning program, go to http://www.fgcu.edu/connect/ Develop your own community involvement project. There might be a number of ways in which you would like to get involved with the community - helping out at your child's school, for example, or participating in a committee at your church. Or working with a community organization in which you take a particular interest. If you take this course of action, you may still be able to get service learning credit for your efforts. If interested in this possibility, I urge you to discuss your project with Linda Summers (590-7016; lsummers@fgcu.edu), the coordinator of FGCU's service learning program. One version of community involvement for your consideration is to attend various public meetings. County commissions, school boards, city councils and other public gatherings are acceptable. To complete this project, you will need to attend at least five of these meetings. You should indicate which meetings you plan on attending in your project proposal. The final report must include detailed notes on all the meetings you attended plus commentary that links this experience to the major topics discussed in this course. You may also want to focus your community involvement project on the campus. You could identify an aspect of campus life that interests you and get involved. This could mean becoming a member of one of the university's many clubs and organizations. It might involve writing for the student newspaper. Whatever the project, it is important that you work in a group. This might mean forming your own group for a given purpose. The first step in this process is to formulate a project proposal. The proposal should contain the following information. You must have contacted the group before submitting your proposal. Name of the group or organization where you will do your work; Contact person at that group or organization Description of the nature of the work that you will be doing Anticipated time commitment - the minimum is 10 hours; there is no maximum. Discussion of why you have chosen this particular community involvement project Statement of objectives - what would you like to get out of this experience. Or - instead of a project proposal, use the Eagle's Connect Agreement and Verification Form, available in the Eagles Connect Office. These project proposals are due at our fourth class meeting. You may hand them in before that. And you may begin your community involvement project as soon as your proposal has been submitted and accepted. The next stage of the project is an interim report, which will be due week 10. The interim report should include the following Discussion of the nature of the group or organization with which you are working; Discussion of the work that your group organization has done; Why is this work being done? What are the goals of the group with which you are working? What is your own personal response to this work? How has your experience changed over time? The final stage of the project is a final report. The final report will ask you to relate your experience with the community awareness project to a number of the ideas that we have discussed in the class. Many of these ideas will be introduced in the second half of the semester. The final report will be due at the end of the term. The final report will take the form of a four to five page paper.
Midterm Essay                                            Return to top	Learning Objectives: Effective communication and ethical responsibility How should we respond to the global economy? In class we have discussed the global economy and have considered its impact on the livelihoods of Americans and, more profoundly perhaps, on the bonds which join us as a nation. We have also considered three basic responses to the global economy: The case for a renewed social contract via increased public investment, thereby regenerating the bonds that tie us together as a nation; The case for relying primarily on market forces to dictate social outcomes, thereby promoting economic growth and preserving individual freedoms (in the sense of freedom from) - additionally, relying on market mechanisms in social policy, for example, the use of vouchers for education at both public and private schools. Democratizing the economy, thereby enabling Americans to participate in decisions that affect their livelihoods. Now the essay question: Which approach or combination of approaches is likely to be most beneficial to American society as a whole? There are a variety of conclusions you might come to hear. You might pick one case or another. You might develop a hybrid position. You might reject all of the available options. Your essay should assume the following format: Section 1 - a discussion of your position and the reasons you maintain this position. You should couch your position in an understanding of how the global economy has reshaped American society. Section 2 - a discussion of the possible objections to your position. Section 3 - your responses to these objections. Note that the midterm essay is given in lieu of a test. But the basic purpose is the same: to test your understanding of the course material. To demonstrate this understanding, you need to use the course material either in developing your position or in formulating objections to it. Grading Criteria for Midterm Clearly stated thesis which serves to organize the paper as a whole; Ability to reconize/entertain diverse and opposing points of view; Clearly written sentences and clearly focused paragraphs; Papers that are free of spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors; Use of citation - give credit for statistical data, direct quotes and ideas.
Photo Essay                               Return to top	Learning Objectives: Community awareness and effective communication You will need a camera for this essay assignment. Take pictures of what this region looks like. Then, from all of your photos, select 6 for use in the paper. I would like you to develop commentary on each of the photographs included in the essay. This commentary should cover the following points: It should indicate exactly where the photograph was taken; It discuss what this photo reveals, from your perspective, about the public realm in Southwest Florida. You should be able to articulate at least two connections between the photograph and the course materials that we have discussed in this class. Consider the following sorts of connections that one might conceivably draw: What does this photo suggest about the way in which economic growth is being managed in Southwest Florida? What does it suggest about the militarization of social space, a topic covered in Mike Davis' "Fortress LA"? How does it relate to Howard Kunstler's discussion of the public realm? (See next class) How does it relate to idea of civil society? How does it relate to the perspectives of the free market democrat ad the participatory democrat? How does it illustrate Reich's thesis of the secession of the successful? The following criteria will be used to assess your performance on this assignment: Text and image communicate important ideas about the public realm? Interpretations relate to at least two of the questions posed above? Texts accompanying images are focused paragraphs Images are clear (it won't do to have blurry or overexposed photos) Paper, taken as a whole, presents a range of ideas? Paper is well presented; easy to read and aesthetically appealing?
Case Study Analysis              Return to top	Learning Objectives: Community awareness and effective communication I will establish a set of case studies at CPN web site (http://www.cpn.org). Pick two of interest to work on. Answer four of the six questions listed below about each case study. Then formulate a conclusion about these case studies. What are the similarities and differences between them? You might consider these in terms of the questions posed below. How and why do people participate in these projects or actions? What is the role of social capital in these experiences? In what ways is it generated? In what ways is lacking? How does it enable communities to act? What is the role of the government and the private sectors in these experiences? In what ways do these case studies change or propose changes in what Kunstler calls the public realm? What is the important of "third places" in these experiences? How do these case studies relate to the central theme of Reich's work, namely the secession of the successful?
Final Self Assessment                         Return to top	Learning Objectives: Ethical responsibility, community awareness and involvement, effective communication, and possibly other outcomes. This course tracks the three of the university's major learning outcomes - community awareness and responsibility, ethical responsibility, and effective communication. In the final assessment, you will discuss the following topics: How did you demonstrate proficiency in each of these areas? Support your claims with evidence from the work you did in class. In what ways could your proficiency in each of these areas be enhanced? What steps could you take to improve your skills in each of these areas? To what extent did undertaking course assignments contribute to your development in each of these areas? How might these assignments be revised to enable future students to make even greater progress in these areas? Are there other university learning objectives with which you have experienced progress? What are they? Again, support your claims with evidence from the work you did in class. This assignment is due during finals week. It must be typed and double spaced. It should be at least five pages in length. It will be evaluated in terms of the following criteria: Did you use evidence to support your claims about the progress you made with respect of each of the learning outcomes? Did you seriously reflect on the way in which your proficiencies in each of these areas can be further developed? Did you reflect on the extent to which course assignments did (or did not) contribute to your progress in each of these areas. Grammar, spelling, punctuation Clear sentences Focused paragraphs Adequate length