I. What is the nature of this assignment? Your Civic Engagement project is a semester long project design to help you become engaged (actively, publicly involved) with the current politics of a topic (of your choice) that is important to you personally.
II. What, am I expected to turn in for my project, and how? Each student will submit a written, typed paper (6 to 8 pages in length) documenting your research (and engagement experiences) relevant to the topic that you have chosen. In order to gain insight on the general expectations for formatting and/or presenting a college-level paper like this one, please refer to the resources provided in this assignment’s widget on our iCollege homepage. Also, GPC’s library is an excellent resource for these kinds of assignments: http://www.gpc.edu/library/distance.htm.
III. What am I supposed to write my paper about? The student is encouraged to link his or her individual, personal interests, or life circumstances, to the content of American politics. Having reflected on your own interests, and those things that are important to you personally, you should take time to scan local & national newspapers, the Internet (* http://civicleagueatlanta.org/index.php; http://botw.org/top/Society/Politics/; politicsnationwide.com; yahoo.com/politics; msnbc.com; CNN; you-tube, politics1.com or http://votesmart.org/interest-groups/NA/#.VGP5vCyUMUs) looking for stories, groups or general topics that are interesting and relevant to you. Toward the end of the semester, Each student will submit a paper to www.turnitin.com, and it should also be posted on our designated iCollege discussion board (accessible by the whole class) as a final presentation.
A significant aspect of this assignment will be for you to show some imagination and creativity in linking your chosen topic to our course content, as well as finding opportunities to PUBLICLY express your concerns, preferences and/or ideas aboutyour chosen community, state, national, or global topic. In other words, become ENGAGED with the current politics of your topic! If you begin to consider a topic for which there is no current public interest with which to become engaged, that should be a good hint that you need to keep thinking. So, you may ask, “What kinds of things would count as becoming involved (click here!)?”
