Journal
Format | Quantity | Timing | General topics | Words to the wise | Some good entries | Some bad entries | Assigned & other topics
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 journals allow students to "talk" with me even if they don't want to talk in class. Second, 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.
Some students hate keeping journals. If you are one of them, you can negotiate a different assignment — a term paper on a mutually developed topic, say. "Negotiate" means we must both agree on the assignment. Also, you must negotiate this during the first two weeks of the semester; afterwards, the window slams shut. This is for your protection, so that you have definite knowledge right from the start of the course what your responsibilities are.
For your journal, please buy a 9.5" x 6" (or larger) saddle-stitched notebook. I will not accept journals except in this form — not typed, not emailed, not single sheets, not ring binder, not stapled or paperclipped, etc.
Put your name, the last digit of your student i.d., and the course number & name on the outside of the journal.
Label and date each entry so I can coordinate what you say with what is happening in the course and in the wide world.
Leave a 1" margin around each entry to allow for my feedback.
I expect you to write at least two entries per week and at least 30 for the semester. The length of the entries is up to you. On the whole, they should be 250 words or more. But if you don't have something to say, please don't say it just to make up the word count. Write until you are done, then stop. If that is less than 250 words, then so be it. However, I will look askance at journals where a substantial number of entries are markedly less than 250 words.
[Some students have complained that 250 words / 30 entries is arbitrary. But I have to specify some number, and 250 words / 30 entries seems like an appropriate minimum level of commitment to an upper-division course, esp. one in political theory. I am happy to entertain arguments why I should pick different numbers.]
I also expect the entries to be well-written. They can be informal in tone, but they should be legible, correctly spelled, and correctly punctuated.
Make journaling an ongoing, steady project. It will be easiest for you if you 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 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. However, I expect your journals to be basically up-to-date. Points will (eventually) be deducted from journals turned in late or that are not kept up-to-date.
I will be collecting journals several times during the semester (plus at the end), as shown in the "DAY" column of the syllabus. The "J's" refer to the last digit of your student i.d. number. I would prefer you to turn in your journal in class, but I will accept it as on time if you put it in my department mailbox (or put it in my hands) by 4:00 p.m. or when I leave, whichever is later.
You will only receive a grade on the journals after I pick them up at the end of the course. Everyone who makes an honest, regular effort will receive a journal grade of "A" at the end of the course. All I want to see is that you deal with the questions to the best of your ability. If you understand the course material, I expect you to press beyond it. If you think you understand the course material, I expect you to lay out and clarify your understandings. If you don't understand the course material, I expect you to state your confusions. In short, all I expect is that you engage the material at whatever level you find yourself.
Below is a list of some things you might write about. You can write about other things, of course, but I will be looking particularly for your grappling 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). Eventually you will find the right track. You can also see a long list of potential topics below.
See if you can tell why I consider the following entries good ones. My explanation follows each entry. [These are taken from Pol 1610 journals, so the content may not be relevant to this specific course.]
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 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.]
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 poorly written, but I approve of the student's evident engagement with the issue and h/her relating it to 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 critical feedback like this helps me; notice how specific it is. Like anyone, I enjoy positive more than negative feedback, but both are valuable. I also think that "Lather, rinse, repeat" is an extremely funny take on the Hegelian dialectic.]
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 the student's conclusion (though I disagree with it), not the ungrammatical writing (though it seems slovenly), and not even the (elided) abusive language (though it saddens me). The problem is, rather, that the student doesn't engage the reading. As should be obvious from the very title of Corvino's piece, the issue that the student raises — "unnaturalness" — is directly addressed by Corvino, and yet the student ignores Corvino's reasoning and just blithely states h/her own opinion. I don't demand that the student agree with Corvino, but s/he needs to acknowledge Corvino's argument/s, even if only to argue against it/them. Why should Corvino have even written anything if the student is simply going to ignore it? (Actually, 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 his 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.
[In general I am reluctant to 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 would be the first president from (wherever) 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.
[These fifteen words were the entire entry. I can hear and appreciate feedback, even critical feedback, but this statement is too vague to be useful to me. Suppose I wrote on your exam paper, "Grade: F. Your answer is wrong." Would this help you do better?]
Why are you taking this class? What led you to take it as opposed to the many other fine upper-division Pol Sci courses (or UMD courses generally)? Go beyond considerations like, "It meets at a good time for me" or "All the other classes were full".
In case you run out of ideas to journal on, here are some other possible topics:
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