Journal

Topics  |  Assigned topics  |  Other good topics  |  If all else fails...  |  Format  |  Quantity  |  Grading;  and words to the wise  |  Some good entries  |  Some bad entries

During this course I would like you to keep a journal in which you record your responses to the lectures, the assigned readings, and other things having to do with the course or with politics.  I will also assign topics from time to time.

I have found this assignment very valuable in the past.  First, the journal keeps your awareness of the course ticking along, even if only at a low level.  To use another metaphor, it plows the field of your mind, so that the ideas planted there will have more vigorous growth.  Second, the journal allows you to "talk" with me even if you don't want to talk in class.  Finally, the journals give me a sense of the class — where it's having problems, where I'm having problems, and most importantly they help me to remember that you really are coming to grips with the material, even if it isn't always reflected in your faces.  This is enormously heartening to me.

Topics

Here are the kinds of things I prefer that you write about:

You can write about other things, of course, but they should have to do with issues of politics (as usually defined) and, more broadly, ways people try to coordinate their behavior with each other.

If you sit down to write and no ideas come, simply start writing whatever comes to mind—random words & phrases, what you see in the room around you, how you feel at the moment.  Don't be afraid to start out, "I hate doing this!" (written as many times as necessary).  Explain why you hate it.  Be concrete & detailed.  Eventually you will find the right track.

Assigned topics [as assigned in the course syllabus]

"No one knows" (Jan 22)

In class I asserted that no one knows who is right in a given situation — or at least that there is always a possibility that the other person might shed an unexpected light on the issue.  Give an example where another person was able to shed such unexpected light on a situation even though you had believed you knew it all.  Remember that the unexpected light doesn't have to have reversed your earlier view, just given you a deeper understanding of the situation.

Ideological reasoning (April 4)

Find an example of ideological reasoning in some news story or analysis.  Be sure to explain how this is ideological reasoning;  don't just say, "Another example of typical fascist [or whatever] thinking."  Go beyond the mere identification of the ideological to explaining how it makes disputable assumptions or cuts off other explanations of what is happening.

Oppression (April 18)

Does oppression exist in the United States?  Specifically, who do you know (including yourself) who has been oppressed, and how were they?  To some critics, people who claim they are oppressed are only whining losers trying to get special treatment;  how would the person you discussed reply to this?

Other good topics

Here are some other subjects I would very much like to see you write on:

• "What help I need in this course"
• "What Prof. Chilton is doing well in this course"
• "What Prof. Chilton should change or might try differently in this course (or future offerings of it)"
• Evaluate:  "All U.S. citizens have / don't have a reasonably equal opportunity to succeed."
• "What I found most interesting in the latest reading, and why"
• "How my family talks about politics (or why they avoid it) "
• "Where I get my news & information about political events & ideas;  and my evaluation of these sources"
• "How I came to choose to take this course"
• "The quiz question I would ask about the reading that would show that I really tried to read it, even if I didn't understand it"
• "The poorest (or most oppressed) person who I know well, and how s/he wound up so poor (or oppressed)"
• "What my generation understands that the previous generation(s) doesn't"
• "How my parents affect my choice for what to study in college"
• "How the political climate in Duluth differs from that in my home town"
• "How my personal political attitudes have changed in my lifetime"
• "Other interesting topics for this list"

[Thanks to Mike James, who suggested several of these.]

If all else fails

The topics listed below aren't required;  they aren't even suggested, but I put them here in case you run completely out of ideas to journal on.

Note, however, that most of these do not relate to the primary purpose of the journal, which is to allow you to process material presented in the readings and lectures.

• "What I wish people would understand about me that isn't obvious on the surface"
• "People's prejudices against me, and what I wish they understood before (pre-)judging me"
• "What I do well as a student" (overall and/or in this course specifically)
• "How I came to choose to go to UMD, and whether it still looks like a good choice"
• "Problems I'm facing with my boyfriend / girlfriend — and what I'm doing (or ought to be doing) about them"
• "Particularly important events, experiences, time periods, situations, conditions, and/or people that made me who I am today"  [esp. those that have made you who you are politically.]
• "What / where / how each of my names — first name, middle name(s), family name, nickname(s), aliases, other name(s) I've gone by in the past — means / says about me / comes from / feels to me "
• "The most personally rewarding course I've ever had, and what made it so"  [The subject matter?  the teacher?  your own interest?  your own effort?  the grade?]
• "What my high school did well in preparing me for UMD, and what it might have done better or differently "
• "The most important thing I'm having trouble squeezing into my life these days"
• "The cliques in my high school, and where I fit in"
• "College drinking"
• "How my family relates to alcohol"
• "What it was like for me in foster care / being an orphan"
• "The effect of my parents' relationship on me and my siblings"

Format

• Your journal should be a 10 " x 8" (approximately) saddle-stitched (i.e., not bound with glue but with string down the middle) notebook.  Be sure that the notebook has at least 45 pages.  I will not accept journals except in this form — not typed, not emailed, not single sheets, not ring- or spiral-bound, not stapled or paperclipped, etc.

• On the outside of the journal put your name, the course number (Pol 1610), and the last digit of your student i.d. number.

• Date each entry.  This lets me coordinate your entries with what is happening in the course and in the wide world.  Give your entries titles (if appropriate;  this is not required).

• Leave a 1" margin around each entry to allow for my responses.

How much and how often should I write?

I would like you to write three entries per two-week period and at least 25 for the semester.  (The total of 25 applies regardless of vacations, times when I have the journal, times when you've left it in Minnetonka, etc.)  More than 25 entries (within reason) will bring higher credit.

On the whole, journal entries should be 200 words or more.  Don't feel compelled to reach the word limit on every journal entry.  Write until you are done, then stop.  If that is less than 200 words, then so be it.  However, I will look askance at journals where a substantial number of entries are markedly shorter than 200 words.

Make journaling a regular exercise.  Make a habit of writing an entry at some standard time.  Especially good times are immediately after you have done each reading assignment and/or immediately before or after class;  these are when the issues will be freshest in your mind and easiest (and most interesting) to write about.

I expect your journals to be basically up-to-date.  I do realize that the ebb and flow of the semester and the demands on your time will mean that you may do more entries one week than another.

I will collect and review your journal twice during the semester and again at the end (April 30), as shown in the "DAY" column of the syllabus.  The "J's" refer to the last digit of your student i.d. number.  I will react or respond to your entries during the semester, but you will receive an overall grade on your journal only when I review it in its final version at the end of the course.

I accept late journals, but points will (eventually) be deducted for lateness.

Grading;  and words to the wise

• You will be graded on the following elements of the journal:
  • The steadiness and timeliness of your production
  • Your having done the required entries shown in the syllabus
  • The thoughtfulness of the entries (This is related to their length but not identical to it.)
  • The relevance of the entries to the course material
  • The number of entries
  • Decent writing mechanics (legible handwriting, accurate spelling and punctuation, and so on) appropriate to college-level work

• Write on a variety of topics.  (One student wrote a quarter of his entries on the JFK assassination — an interesting topic, but I'd like to see a greater variety.)
• Most of your entries should be reasonably connected to the course, esp. what we're covering at the moment.  "Reasonably connected" includes comments about how the class is going for you, how I'm doing in communicating, etc.
• However, don't use the journal for class notes or outlines of the readings.  The journal is for gathering your thoughts and/or responding to the course material.
• In the same spirit:  grapple with the issues raised, don't just list or retell them.  Don't just say that you "liked [or didn't like] this reading / lecture / topic."
• Don't worry about whether you're producing super-intelligent material.  I don't expect you to be a master pundit yet.  I'm just interested in how seriously you grapple with the issues.  Punditry will take care of itself.  If you're confused, say so ... and say what confuses you.
• Don't rant.  Well, o.k., you can rant a little — it's good to discover how you feel about issues, and people's rants are fun to read.  In the end, however, the more ranting you do, the less you are actually grappling with the issues.
• Don't worry about whether you agree with me.  I've been doing this a long time, I have a thick skin, I don't assume that I'm always right, and I am much more impressed by your serious consideration of the issues than I am with your agreement.
• Feel free to write more than 200 words per entry, but longer entries do not substitute for the equivalent number of 200-word entries.

Some good entries

See if you can tell why I consider the following [partial] entries good ones.  My explanation follows each entry.

I:

We have now started a new unit about liberation ideologies.  I find it hard to understand how a liberation ideology can be involved in politics enough to necessitate its own party such as the Green Party.  I think that liberation ideologies should form interest groups, but there is no way you could run a country when your main concern is animal rights or environmental protection.  The best thing to do would be to try and influence the existing parties as much as possible, but to think that the Green Party could run the country is absurd.  They just have little to no experience in areas other than what they wish to liberate.

[While I disagree with this student's conclusion, the entry is nevertheless a very thoughtful one.]

II:

Today we are still continuing Conservatism.  I have been thinking that both modern and classical have some selling points.  I think that the party system in the U.S. is a good one because we have two or three major parties.  If we had a classical conservative and modern conservative and liberals and neoliberals, etc., elections would be much more chaotic.  The way things are now, no matter who is elected, it is reasonable to believe that things won't drastically change when a new party takes over.  Stability and progress have both been involved in American politics for a long time, so both modern and classical conservatives should be happy.

[Same comment as before:  I disagree, but it's a thoughtful entry.  There are some mechanical errors here, and the overall logic isn't tight, but that I don't make a fuss about these unless they make it hard for me to read the entry.]

III:

Reading about Hitler is quite scary.  I think because the message that he is pushing is so clearly faulted, but at the same hand he was able to get the entire nation behind war & his racist views to commit one of the worst crimes ever!  It was by means of the fascist theory of appealing to the masses was he able to give the down and out Germans something that they could rally behind.  It is just too bad it was genocide in which he rallied for.  My fear of that what happened over 50 years ago could somehow happen again, with the correct situation or leader and economic conditions.  It is like the mob mentality.  What no man would do by himself many men will do together.  I was at the U of M last Spring when the Gophers won the national championship hockey, and let me tell you it was a very scary place to be.  From what I could tell people still knew what they were doing was wrong.  They just did not [illegible] much because everyone was doing it.  I don't know if this is how the Germans felt but to me it sounds very similar.

[This entry is not terribly grammatical, but this is a journal, not a term paper, so I notice primarily the student's evident engagement with the issue, particularly h/her bringing in personal experience.]

IV:

Alright — I get the dialectic!  Enough already!  Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  I'm going over Marx in two courses and it's odd, because it's different parts of Marx.  The other course is stressing the class thing.  And this course is stressing the exploitation of the classes thing.  It's nice to finally hear what the Manifesto is.  I've had a lot of classes that have referenced The Communist Manifesto and they all thought I had had it explained in some other class.

[Feedback on the course is very useful to me.  Even semi-critical feedback like this helps me;  notice how specific it is.  Like anyone, I enjoy praise more than criticism, but both are valuable.  I also think that "Lather, rinse, repeat" is both perceptive and hilarious.]

Some bad entries

See if you can tell why I consider the following entries bad ones:

I:

After reading stuff about gay people and stuff [John Corvino  "Homosexuality: The Nature and Harm Arguments"] it makes me feel that I don't believe gays should have the right to marry.  It's just unnatural.  I am not a deeply religious guy but I believe we are here to procreate and I don't think gays have the appropriate equipment to get it done....  The bottom line is gays should not marry but do what they want with their lives but don't let em get married.

[The problem with the above entry is not its conclusion (though I disagree with it), not the slovenly writing, and not even the abusive language (which I have elided).  The problem is, rather, that the entry doesn't engage the reading.  As you will see when we read Corvino, the issue that the student raises — "unnaturalness" — is directly addressed by Corvino, but the student blithely ignores Corvino's arguments and just states h/her own dogmatic opinion.  Why should Corvino have even written anything if the student is simply going to ignore it?  The student need not agree with Corvino, but s/he needs to acknowledge Corvino's argument/s, even if only to argue against it/them.  (The problem may have been that the student had not done the reading in the first place, but that's not an excuse.  If anything, it makes the entry worse.)]

II:

[A modern pop singer] would be my ideal candidate for President.  She is from [wherever] and we have never had a President from there before.  She is sweet yet can be a bitch when she needs to.  I think that would be a great combo for dealing with foreign affairs.  Also she could sing and dance the State of the Union Address.  That would be so entertaining.  Plus a lot of people in Europe like her.

[I rarely judge the merits of students' arguments, but this just goes too far.  Regardless of this singer's talents, and the remote possibility that she might make a good president, it won't be because she is from {wherever} or because she would be the first president from there or because she can sing and dance the State of the Union Address for our entertainment.]

III.

I don't see why you can't explain things so I understand them in your lectures.

[This single sentence was the entire entry.  I can hear and appreciate feedback, even critical feedback, but this statement is too vague to be useful to me.  Suppose my only comment on your entire exam was, "Grade:  F.   Write better answers."  Would you understand where you went wrong?  Would this help you do better?]