| Prepare at least two drafts of a written response to a question related to the material. You will be evaluated using the following critical thinking standards • Clarity: What do you mean? • Relevance: How is this related to that? • Accuracy: Is that true?How do you know?According to whom? • Precision: For example? What specifically do you mean? • Logic: Does this follow from that?Does this make sense? • Breadth: Is there another way to look at this? How would this look from a ___ perspective? • Depth: What makes this difficult? What makes this complicated? • Significance: Is that the most important point? • Fairness: What’s your angle? Where is your interest in this? Are you being fair to X? * These Questions will require you to explore additional material beyond what you find in the textbook. Each response must be typed and annotated according to the standards outlined either by the Modern Language Association or the Chicago Manual of Style. Directions: Please respond to one of the following essay prompts. Your response must be about 1000 words in length, and must adhere to a standard manuscript form. Be sure to support your argument with specific references to primary or secondary sources. 1. According to conventional wisdom, the primary recurrent salient issues in most states tend to concern jobs, crime, education and taxes. To what extent do public opinion poll data in Texas support or challenge the conventional wisdom? Sources to consider: * The Annual Texas Lyceum Poll: Polls page at the Texas Lyceum * The UT/Texas Tribune Poll: The UT/Texas Tribune Poll Online * Dalton, Russell J. Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies: Washington DC: SAGE/CQ Press, 2008. * Lippmann, Walter. Public Opinion. New Brunswick (USA) and London (UK): Transaction Publishers, 1998 (Macmillan 1922) * Shepard, Lorrie A., Amelia E. Kreitzer, and M. Elizabeth Graue. A case study of the Texas teacher test: Technical report. Center for the Study of Evaluation, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Los Angeles, 1987. 2. To which party platform is it necessary for a partisan to remain “responsible”? Choose one of the following partisans and, using their own public statements from the 2018 election season, decide to what extent he or she is responsible to his or her party’s state platform or national platform. Be sure to cite specific platform positions from each party’s state and national committee. * Greg Abbott * Beto O’Rourke * Lupe Valdez * Dan Patrick * Dennis Bonnen * Clay Jenkins Sources to consider: The Democratic Party State of Texas: The Democratic Party of Texas Platform National Platform: The Democratic National Committee Platform The Republican Party State of Texas : The Republican Party of Texas Platform National Platform: The Republican National Committee Platform 3. To what extent do you think media portrayals reinforce, perpetuate or challenge conventional assumptions about the political culture of Texas? Do these portrayals match your own experience of the state’s political culture? If so, how? If not why not? Please use specific examples from the last 30 days. 4. Choose a Texas public policy issue that is of particular salience for you. For this issue, identify the following: * The key policymakers and organized interest groups surrounding the issue (These are generally called the “Players”) * Each Player’s specific position regarding the issue * Which alternative position each Player will settle for if they can’t get what they really want, and * How much influence each Player has over the other Players on the policymaking outcome. Based on these points, what do you think will happen regarding this issue? |
