During the semester, all students are required to get at least 15 points from “study projects,” which include participating on the course’s “Piazza” online question/answer site, attending and participating in a study group meeting, or completing one of several small research assignments.
The Piazza online question/answer site
The class Piazza site is a place to collaborate with other students, the TA, and the instructor in understanding the readings and course concepts. For every section of the course syllabus, there are general study questions listed. Once you’ve signed on to the course site, you can read what’s been posted so far on a given topic and then either post an answer, post a related question, or edit an existing answer to make it better. To earn a point, you must post or edit twice on a subject during the appropriate week(s) when the subject is being discussed in lectures and readings. For each week’s assignments, you may post any time from Friday BEFORE the readings are assigned to the Monday AFTER they are assigned. This means that, during weekends, you can either post about the past week’s readings or next week’s readings.
Discussion sessions
At regular intervals (times and places to be announced), there will be group study sessions on sections of the course. If you attend and participate in one of these sessions, you get two points.
Research Assignments
At odd intervals during the semester, research questions will be posted worth various amounts of points. For example:
Horse race and strategy coverage analysis: Find a clear example of horse race and/or strategy coverage of political campaigns in the news media. Turn in a two page essay explaining 1) why this is an example of horse race/strategy coverage; 2) what social processes encouraged journalists covered the events this way; and 3) how else this set of events might have been covered that would have been helpful to the political process. Include a copy or transcript of the news you analyze. Worth up to three points.