In order to successfully complete this course, you must demonstrate your understanding of the course materials by:
IMPORTANT: For all assignments in this class, proper citation guidelines should be followed.
NOVA’s Library team can help with this, and you can find out more about getting in touch with them on the NOVA Library website.
The Library has more specific help on how to cite sources and avoid plagiarism.
You will see a number of different guide options, like APA, MLA, and Chicago/Turabian. You can work with whichever one you like, but just be consistent with it in any paper or assignment.
Here is an overview of all of the different types of assignments in the course. You can find detailed directions and the grading rubrics in the modules where they are assigned.
The individual assignments are a mix of fill-in-the-blank questions and short essays to test your comprehension of knowledge. All of the short essays will be submitted via Turnitin to check for plagiarism. All submitted student written assignments will be added as source documents in Turnitin reference database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such assignments in the future.
The discussions can allow you to practice written communication and critical thinking skills. They provide you with an opportunity to interact with your classmates and learn various perspectives on different topics. They require you to apply what you learned in the course to analyze different forms of government.
Your instructor's role in the discussion will be to let you know when you are on or off track in following the assignment directions and in providing useful feedback to you and your classmates.
Please note that discussion initial responses and comments on classmates' posts have different due dates. The initial responses are due earlier, so the class has enough time to review and comment on each other's posts. This ensures that you are fully engaged in discussions, as you would be in a live classroom. Please on the ideas in your classmates' posts, not on the classmates, and be open to new ideas.
Please follow the discussion guideline in the discussion forums to complete all the discussion activities unless otherwise noted.
You will watch Mr. Saul Alinsky's interview from 1967 with William F. Buckley and answer the question in a 10-15 minute video.
Please follow the guidelines:
Content: Identify the issue to be adjusted, explain why it matters to you, and describe how you would organize to make the change. Per Alinsky, “community” may be interpreted however you see fit, but the tactics to be employed must be clearly explained. How, specifically, would you and a group of like-minded citizens take direct action on the issue in question?
Presentation: Per the Alinsky institutes, add some element of visual aid to your video in the form of a PowerPoint, a poster, a graph or chart, or something else to help show the viewer your outline for change.
Peer Review: In the course of production, have a real-life fellow community member examine the contents of your proposal, and include their response on background in your video.
The video presentation is considered as one of the proctored assessments for the course.
There are three quizzes in the course. All three quizzes are closed book without notes or Internet access (except for Canvas). Electronic devices (cell phones, electronic translators, computers, iPads, and similar tools) are not to be used during testing. There are 20 multiple-choice questions covering the course materials, including the online articles and the lectures. You need to understand and memorize the concepts covered in the course to complete the quizzes successfully.
The first quiz should be taken in a proctored environment. The video presentation and the quiz are the two proctored assessments for the course. You must pass these two assignments with a passing percentage of 60 percent in order to pass the course regardless of your scores on other graded assignments.
The purpose of this assignment is to explore theoretical interpretations and applications of the events surrounding the uproar at the United States Capitol on 6 January 2021.
In essay form, please answer the research question, “Why did the insurrection at the Capitol occur, and how can similar democratic breakdown be prevented?” In your response, consider proximate causes of the days leading up to the event, as well as structural causes operating at a deeper level, taking into account the research conducted above. Please cite both the sources above and other outside research, as needed. Pursue at least several main ideas, with sufficient supporting detail, in 3 to 4 pages, single-spaced. Any formatting style (MLA, APA) is equally acceptable.