Political Manifesto

Essay Assignment # 1

DUE DATE:

Per Course Syllabus

INSTRUCTIONS:

Being able to articulate your own political ideology and substantiate your beliefs is the first step towards active civic engagement. In this assignment, you are required to articulate your political ideology as it aligns with institutionalized platforms and identify & examples of your ideology in action. Think of this assignment as developing your case for support on what your political priorities are and why your party makes the most meaningful change in those areas (evidence based research).

REMEMBER:

12-point font

Name & ID # on upper left hand corner

Class Meeting time

Minimum 1000 words

Citation/Work Cited Page

Please use MLA citation methods. You can find online samples and resources at:http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/.

Please us the FREE Library & Writing Resources!

STEP 1 DEVELOP A RESEARCHED OUTLINE:

You should first research:

· Political parties as defined by their official party platforms-research both and compare your parties based on your priorities (identify 3 main issues you support within the party you choose);

· Leaders/Philosophers that represent your political ideology (identify 1 leader that inspires you to align with that party); and

· Social movements that represent your ideology in action (choose 1 social movement that illustrates the grassroots nature of the party in action).

For example, if you posit that you are a Democrat, you would look to the official platform of the Democratic Party and discuss their principles. Choose three that align with your personal priorities and discuss the party’s stance on that issue and support your beliefs with evidence-based research. For example, if you are a Democrats and one of your three priorities is equality you would reference the party language that shows they support equality AND you must for full points discuss policy initiatives that illustrate that parties commitment to the issue i.e. President Obama, as the head of the Democrat party, signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Law which seeks to insure women get equal pay for equal work compared to their mail counterparts. Secondly, you should look to one specific leader, be it political, historical, literary, artistic etc that reflects your ideological leanings and discuss your shared ideology. Lastly, discuss a social movement that reflects your beliefs. Example: Democratic leanings tend to support the environmental movement and Republican leanings support ideas like Pro-life.

You are defining your beliefs as they relate to institutionalized ideologies and using three examples as evidence of how your beliefs work in the political landscape. You must use a minimum of 5 outside resources NOT including the text. Wikipedia, e-how, yahoo answers and similar websites are not academically rigorous and although may be helpful to you in your initial research should not be used on a work cited page.

STEP 2 Synthesize research & Write a cohesive essay:

Once your outline is complete, begin putting all your pieces together. You want an essay that clearly discusses your three priorities with supporting evidence for each. Identify your leader clearly and your social movement clearly. These are two separate sections. Make sure you include transition sentences between the sections. The reader should be able to walk away from reading your paper and clearly know what your three focus areas are, what leader most influenced you as it related to identifying with a political party and what social movement exemplifies your party in a grassroots effort.

If it helps you, set out section headers. You may keep them or you may change their names or not use them at all. Do what works best when organizing your writing.

Sample Headers:

Introduction

Tell the reader about the three issues you care most about, what leader influenced you and what social movement speaks to you.

Issues

Issue 1: Paragraph discussing your issues with supporting research that illustrate why your party is the party that solves the problem (use policy, legislation etc). Include transition sentence.

Issue 2: Repeat with second issue. Include transition sentence.

Issue 3: Repeat with third issue. Include transition sentence to Leadership section.

Leadership

Include two paragraphs discussing the leader that has influenced you to identify with your political party. Examples: MLK, Thomas Jefferson, Maya Angelou, Ayn Rand, President Obama etc. Need transition sentence.

Social Movement

Include two paragraphs discussing the grassroots social movement that shows your party in action. Examples: Black Lives Matter, 99%, Pro-life etc. Need transition sentence.

Conclusion

Leave the reader with a sense of who you are politically. Tell them what you told them. End strong!