HISTORY 1700 Democracy paper

Students will attend a meeting of elected public officials at which public policy is made--a city council, a school board, a student senate, a county commission. They will observe whether democracy is happening--participatory self governance. Consider:

1. Is the agenda, the reports, the information about the policies being discussion readily available?
2. Is the public welcome to speak, to comment, to participate in the workings of the meeting?
3. Does policy come out of the workings of the meeting--or have the elected officials decided beforehand--is their decision a result of public discussion, etc.?

The paper should be about 3-500 words in length, presented formally--in type (pica size no larger than 12), free of gross spelling and grammatical errors. I will judge the paper's strengths based on the following criteria:

Holistic Scoring Guide for formal papers:

5 = Writing  demonstrates superb composition skills including a clear and thought-provoking main idea, an appropriate sense of audience, effective organization, interesting and convincing supporting materials, effective word choice and sentence skills, and perfect or near-perfect mechanics including spelling and punctuation. The writing superbly accomplishes the objectives of the assignment and shows original thinking.

4 = Writing  contains strong composition skills including a clear, insightful main idea, although there may be minor deficiencies in development or word choice. Style may not be consistently clear and effective. Shows careful and acceptable use of mechanics. Accomplishes the goals of the assignment effectively overall.

3 = Writing demonstrates satisfactory composition skills. There is adequate development and organization, although the development of ideas may be trite, assumptions may be unsupported in more than one area, the main idea may not be original, or the word choice and sentence structure may not be clear and effective. Accomplishes the basic goals of the assignment.

2 = Composition skills are flawed in either the clarity of the main idea, the development, or the organization. Word-choice, sentence structure, and mechanics may seriously affect clarity. Minimally accomplishes the majority of the goals of the assignment.

1 = Composition skills are seriously flawed in two or more areas. Word-choice, sentence structure, and mechanics are excessively flawed. Accomplishes few of the goals of the assignment.