CMC Congress Course: Congress and the President II

ABOUT THIS BLOG

I shall post videos, graphs, news stories, and other material there. We shall use some of this material in class, and you may review the rest at your convenience. You will all receive invitations to post to the blog. (Please let me know if you do not get such an invitation.) I encourage you to use the blog in these ways:

To post questions or comments about the readings before we discuss them in class;
To follow up on class discussions with additional comments or questions.
To post relevant news items or videos.

There are only two major limitations: no coarse language, and no derogatory comments about people at the Claremont Colleges.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Congress and the President II

Simulation

Roles

I encourage you to use Twitter -- but please follow Twitter guidelines for spoof accounts!

See last year's Twitter accounts
Also please send me your tweets: @jpitney

Peer evaluation: On Monday, April 4 (the Monday after simulation) please bring in a short memo in which you identify three or four participants who did a particularly good job. Give a couple of sentences to each person you name, explaining why she or he stood out. Give special attention to those who did their work behind the scenes. Please take some care with these memos. In addition to using them for evaluating the assignment, I save them so that I may quote them in letters of recommendation. Evaluations are anonymous: please bring in hardcopy and do not put your own name on the sheet.

Writeup: In analyzing your role in the simulation, please cover these points:

How well did your positions and goals match those of your real-life counterpart?
What methods did you use? In the circumstance that you dealt with, would your counterpart have done the same?
What obstacles did you face?
What did you achieve?
How did the simulation both resemble and differ from the real world?
Overall, what did you learn?

You may include relevant supporting materials, such as: memoranda, bill drafts, or strategy notes. (Better yet, just refer to material that is already online, and provide the URLs.) Please be selective here: do not include everything, just the key items.

Essays should be double-spaced, and between 5 and 6 pages long. I will not read past the 6th page. (Supporting materials do not count against the page limit.)
Cite outside sources with Turabian endnotes.
Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you.
Return essays to the Sakai dropbox by 11:59 PM, Friday April 15. Your grade for the simulation will drop one gradepoint for one day's lateness, a full grade after that.