Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Courses/U.S. Political Parties (Shamira Gelbman)/Course description

Course description


POL 214: U.S. Political Parties is an undergraduate political science course devoted to the subject of political parties in the United States.

In class, we'll focus especially on the origins and development of the American party system, its distinctive features in comparison to other countries' party systems, and a few "hot button" issues pertaining to the role political parties play in contemporary politics. Along the way, we'll introduce a variety of frameworks and concepts political scientists have developed to help make sense of American party system dynamics, including V.O. Key's PIG-PIE-PO model, the median voter theorem, Duverger's law, realignment, and polarization. More information about the ground we'll be covering and the syllabus are available on the course website.

The Wikipedia assignment outlined below is part of a larger "state parties and platforms" project that the 70 students enrolled in the two Fall 2011 sections of POL 214 will carry out over the course of the semester. Each student will be assigned one state political party organization's article to assess and improve. They'll also represent their assigned state party on one of seven policy committees, which will be responsible for drafting and presenting party platform planks at a mock party convention that will be held in early December. A Teaching-Learning Development Grant for this project has been provided by the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology at Illinois State University.

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