ACTIVITY 5.

CRITIQUING

READ AND CRITICIZE THE GIVEN SAMPLE OF SYLLABUS BELOW.

Please review what essential content are included and what other parts are given
focus. Criticize the given syllabus according to what are expected and not
expected parts. Explain your comments and criticismwith not less than 300
words.

Spring 2014 ONLINE

th
POLS 110 Introduction to Political Science Course Period: February 3rd - May 16 , 2014.
Gitte du Plessis gitte@hawaii.edu
Course Description
This course is designed to provide you with an understanding of politics in relation to society and culture. It is an
introduction to the basic concepts, problems, systems, ideologies, and terminology of contemporary political
science. A major objective of this course is to develop critical thinking skills - to go beyond surface level analyses of
politics in order to uncover multiple and often opposing truths. We begin with the premise that "the political"
permeates all of human activity, and it is our task in this course to identify and analyze "the political" in a variety of
settings. The course is structured around reading a textbook, which will be supplemented with other readings,
movies and documentaries that help to highlight the different themes we will be discussing.
Office Hours
As this is an online course I will not be holding in-person office hours, but I will still be making myself available
regularly. Feel free to email me directly at gitte@hawaii.edu. I will be happy to answer your questions by email, or
if needed we can set up a time to Skype.
Plagiarism
If you present someone else’s words or ideas as your own, you are plagiarizing them. Plagiarism is a form of theft
and academic dishonesty. Some examples include doing any of the following without proper citation: cutting and
pasting text from a website, paraphrasing another person’s ideas, directly copying words from any source (book,
journal, script), etc. Doing any of the above is cheating and will result in serious consequences. Any work that is
deemed to include plagiarized material will be failed.
I understand that generally people resort to plagiarism when they are under pressure for various reasons: work,
family, relationships, or simply not understanding the material. Please talk to me if you are having trouble with the
work. We will work something out together that will be much better than cheating and failing.
If you have any questions about the plagiarism policy of the school please see the UHM Student Conduct Code:
www.hawaii.edu/ail/students/plagiarism.html. For all UHM policies on academic integrity please see this
page:http://www.manoa.hawaii.edu/students/conduct/impermissible_behavior.html.
Services to students with disabilities
If you have any kind of disability and you are concerned about access to the course or completing the required work,
I encourage you to contact KOKUA. The KOKUA program is located on the ground floor of the Student Services
Center, online (http://www.hawaii.edu/kokua/), and can also be reached by phone at 956-7511.
Required Reading
You are expected to acquire one book for this course:
- Douglas A. Van Belle. A Novel Approach to Politics: Introducing Political Science through Books, Movies, and
Popular Culture. Third Edition. Victoria University at Wellington. 2012.
All other materials for the course will be posted on Laulima.
Assignments
All assignments should be typed, single-spaced, 12 pointfont, with proper grammar, spelling, and sentencestructure.
For assignments turned in electronically please make sure that your files are word documents (the file ending should
be .doc or .docx).
Grading
Your final grade will be based on your grades for three analytical essays, your participation in class forums, and
your final paper. The three essays will be worth 15% each, the forum participation 20%, and your final paper will
count for 35% of your grade.
Three analytical essays - 45% Forum participation - 20% Final paper - 35%
Analytical Essays
You will complete three analytical essays during the semester. These essays should be about 1200 - 1500 words in
length and will respond to a broad question pertaining to issues we have worked with in class. I will post the
question at least three weeks prior to each deadline. The essays are designed to help you practice applying the
material presented in readings, movies and forums in order to describe and analyze this material in response to a
specific question. You will be able to answer the questions based on class materials; you are not expected to conduct
outside research, however you are welcome to include outside aspects if something relevant comes to mind for you.
When I post the first question, I will also post a more specific description of what is required for each essay. All
essays should be submitted online to gitte@hawaii.edu. The essays are due Friday at noon of week 4, 7 and 10.
Forum Participation
In order to keep you committed on reading and viewing all the assigned material, you will be expected to post a
reaction (at least 2 paragraphs) each week relating to the material of that week. Additionally, you will be expected to
post at least two comments to fellow student’s reactions (at least a short paragraph). I will also participate in your
forums and you are welcome to respond to my posts too. The deadline for forum posts will be every Friday at
noon. In order to give your fellow students a chance to have some reactions to comment on, I encourage you to get
these posts in earlier in the week rather than later.
Final paper
Your final project is a paper about a topic related to the course that you wish to explore further. The length of the
paper is about 5000 words. For this paper you are expected to include knowledge you have gained from the readings
and assignments of the course as well as additional outside research on your topic of choice. The task here is to write
a coherent presentation, exploration and critical discussion of a topic. You will be graded on your ability to critically
analyze rather than
th
summarize your findings. The final paper is due on the last day of class - Friday, May 16 - and is to be
submitted to gitte@hawaii.edu. I will supply a more detailed description of what is expected from the final paper in
the beginning of the semester.

Course Schedule
Prior to the readings and viewings for each week, I will upload either a reading or a viewing guide with some
questions so you know what to look for, think about and perhaps respond to in the weekly online forum.

Week 1: Introduction and Syllabus

-  Van Belle, Chapter 1: Introducing popular culture as a tool for exploring politics. Distinguishing
Ideologies from Theories. What is Politics? What is Political Science?
-  Watch the RSA Animation First as Tragedy, Then as Farce in which political philosopher Slavoj
Žižek discusses ethics, capitalism and charity.
Week 2: Security and Anarchy
-  Van Belle, Chapter 2: Security, Power, Anarchy, Alliances, Groups. Resisting or relying on
government?
-  Read the introduction to John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty.
-  Read part I of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan.
Week 3: Governing Society
-  Van Belle, Chapter 3: The Panopticon, Collective Action, Revolution, Control, Elections, Public
Goods, Force and Legitimacy.
-  Read excerpts from Michel Foucault’s Society must be defended and The Birth of Biopolitics.
Week 4: Government’s Role in the Economy
-  Van Belle, Chapter 4. The Concept of the Commons, Karl Marx, Communism, Capitalism,
Labor, Socialism.
-  Watch Naomi Klein’s documentary The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. First
analytical essay due.

Week 5: Structures and Institutions

-  Van Belle, Chapter 5. Human nature and political Institutions. Legitimacy and information.
-  Read about Egypt and the Arab Spring (current material will be chosen closer to the day of
class).
Week 6: Leaders: Kings, Presidents and Democratic Executives
-  Van Belle, Chapter 6. Religious and authoritarian oligarchy, democratic executives as heads of
states and governments.
-  Watch Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.
Week 7: The Legislative Function
-  Van Belle, Chapter 7. Lawmaking, legislative representation, parliamentary and presidential
systems.
-  Watch Schoolhouse Rock’s I'm Just a Bill.
Week 8: Courts and Law
-  Van Belle, Chapter 9. Law in theory versus practice, functions of courts, legal systems.
-  Read excerpts from Sally Engle Merry’s Colonizing Hawai'i: The Cultural Power of Law.
-  Second analytical essay due.
Week 9: The Democratic Ideal
-  Van Belle, Chapter 10. Democracy, the liberal ideal, direct and representative democracy.
-  Read Fareed Zakaria’s article The Rise of Illiberal Democracy.
Week 10: Media, Politics and Government
-  Van Belle, Chapter 11. News Media, The Business of News, Political Conflict as Soap Opera,
Conspiracies.
-  Watch the documentary Outfoxed! Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism
Week 11: International Politics
-  Van Belle, Chapter 12. War and Conflict. Fear.
-  Watch the documentary War Made Easy.
-  Third analytical essay due.
Week 12: Summing it up
 -  Van Belle, Chapter 15. Subfields of Political Science within the Study of Politics and Applied
Politics.
-  This week we will also take time to discuss your final papers.
Week 13: Final Paper Due
 CRITIQUE ABOUT THE GIVEN SYLLABUS

Political Science course is the political study of politics; it is the scientific study of
political behavior and institutions. There are essential content in the syllabus including the
importance of political science course. To enlighten students about the said course, the syllabus
provided introduction and fundamental understanding of politics. Yes, indeed because this
course that we are taking has different units such as Comparative Politics, International World
Organization, Public Administration, Political Theory and fundamentals of Political Science. By
means of learning it with the given duration of time, we study concept, systems, ideologies and
terminologies regarding political science course. This syllabus is not made just to show and
serves as a guide for the students and teachers, it has major objective at first which is to develop
student’s thinking skills. I strongly agree because as a student we are being challenged with
different problems in readings and difficult questions in lectures that make us used our problem-
solving skills, abilities, and capacities. But in the end, it will help to hone and develop our
cognitive thinking skills.
Certainly, assignments, analytical essays, final paper and it’s due date are expected these
are important and some of the challenges to finish the political science course. By implementing
it, teachers are able to know if their students truly learned something or if they really studying or
not, how competent they are, and if there is educational, critical thinking skills and personal
skills improvement. By presenting one’s own work without plagiarism using the only required
book for reading, students may be able to complete the required essays with accurate words in
the given deadline according to the syllabus.

In addition, I recognized that this syllabus is not just explaining what the course is all
about. How important and beneficial the course is, how they execute the course, and what will be
the given requirements to finish the course are also discussed. It has consideration too; the author
made him or her available regularly and encourages them to direct message if anyone has
questions regarding the topic or course. Also, surprisingly, there are services for the students
with disabilities that I did not expect; they provide full assistance that shows how considerate the
sample syllabus is.

Moreover, the syllabuses are detailed and organize contents with consideration; clear
requirements system and proper course schedule are the positive sides of the syllabus. Then, it is
more focused on the requirements; it’s schedule and due date. Because I believe that the author’s
intention here and wants to emphasize is for the students to learn or study smarter not harder, to
fulfill requirement in order to graduate or have a degree. Because emphasizing due date means to
have a good management, prioritize work, and be stressful at the end of targeting an achievable
goal.

In general, I absolutely agree and amazed by the author for making such an organized,
clear and detailed steps .he or she is way too perceptive to complete everyone’s need to know
and learn. Unlike any other syllabus which are disorganized and incomplete in details that
sometimes confused students and faculties how and what course is all about. As general, the
syllabus followed the general rule in writing syllabus that makes it so understandable.