Service Learning Project is helping a school with autistic kids before going back to school.

Service Learning Project is helping a school with autistic kids before going back to school.

Entry 1: Write an entry of 400 words minimum on why you chose your project. Discuss the life or work experiences that may have influenced your selection, including whether these experiences were positive or negative. Consider how issues of community, government or individual responsibility, leadership, productivity, problem solving, work ethic, and/or ambition might have affected your project selection. Most importantly, explain why your project is important to you, as well as to the larger community. Label this entry “Selection of the Service Learning Project.”

Entry 2: Write an entry of 400 words minimum explaining how your project relates to two of the course objectives, Objective 12 and one or two others between 1 and 11 (do not choose objective 13). See the list of course objectives in the Introduction Above. Be sure to explain why you think these objectives are important. Label this entry “Service Learning Project Objective.”

Note: The purpose of this entry is not to tell what you think the objective of your Service Learning Project was; rather, it is, as stated above, to relate your project to specified course objectives.

Entries 3-9: Narrate your experiences on the project each week for seven weeks—unless you combine entries, which is allowed, as long as they meet the minimum word count requirement. Integrate brief references wherever possible to the six values studied in Week 1. Be sure to relate your project experiences briefly to specific ideas in each of the Week 11 readings. Ideally, you will synthesize ideas from these readings in entries 3-7; however, you may also do so in entries 1, 2, and 8. You may also briefly reference ideas from earlier weeks in the course, as well as up to four additional sources you have found in your own research.

A minimum of 500 words must be written each week.

Entries should simply be labeled with the appropriate entry number(s), for example, Entry 3, Entry 4, Entries 5-6, Entries 5-8, and so on.

Entry 10: For the concluding entry of 400 words, labeled ”Conclusions,” summarize your project, its relation to the course themes and readings, and your feelings about your project experiences.

Course Objectives:
Students who successfully complete the Kirkpatrick Signature Series should be able to do the following:
1. Explain the importance of such values as liberty, legal equality and equality of opportunity, tolerance, respect for dissent, self-reliance, and the pursuit of truth in sustaining and enriching America’s experiment with democracy.
2. Analyze the origins of American democratic ideas in the political theories of such philosophers as Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau and critique each philosopher’s political ideas.
3. Explain the structure of the United States Constitution and evaluate the strengths and limitations of such major theories of Supreme Court judicial review as strict constructionism and the living document theory. Apply this knowledge to current Supreme Court cases.
4. Analyze and critique the merits of two significant contending theories of American governance: the conservative theory of limited government and progressivism. Apply this knowledge to current political issues.
5. Analyze the historically and morally necessary forces of change that brought an end to slavery and segregation, as well as to second-class citizenship for women and people of color.
6. Analyze the history of immigration to the United States and evaluate the ways in which successive waves of immigrants have both challenged and enriched American society and its institutions.
7. Evaluate the means by which America can continue to foster a society of inclusion, in which all types of diversity are respected, appreciated, and valued.
8. Explain the changing role of religion in the public square from the Puritan immigration in the 17th century through the American Founding in the 18th century to the series of 20th century Supreme Court decisions that have significantly separated church and state, and critique the arguments from both sides of this often contentious issue.
9. Assess the impact, both positive and negative, of moral absolutism and moral relativism on modern American culture and society. Apply this knowledge to their moral decision-making.
10. Analyze the major changes in the American family since World War II and evaluate the positive and negative consequences of these changes.
11. Analyze the ways in which free-market capitalism, socialism, communism, and a mixed economic theory compete in the modern world for social and political dominance and evaluate the strengths and limitations of each theory.
12. Explain the vital role of the citizen in creating and maintaining a civil society through voluntarism and civic engagement, a role that can complement and sometimes replace the role of the government in ensuring the well being of society.
13. Apply the insights gleaned from modern economic theory and from the theory of civic engagement to their personal economic decisions and to their acts of service to the larger community.

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Week 1 Required Readings
American Value 1: Liberty:
Reading that illustrates Value 1:Thomas Paine: from Common Sense (1776)

Of the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution
Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession
Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs
American Value 2: Legal Equality and Equality of Opportunity:

Reading that illustrates Value 2: Dr. Martin Luther King: “I Have a Dream” (1963)

American Value 3: Tolerance:
Reading that illustrates Value 3: Crevecoeur: Letters from an American Farmer, Letter III What Is an American? (1782)

American Value 4: Respect for Dissent:
Reading that illustrates Value 4: Henry David Thoreau: “Civil Disobedience” (1849; also known as “Resistance to Civil Government”)

American Value 5: Self-Reliance:
Reading that illustrates Value 5: Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Self-Reliance” (1841/1847)

American Value 6: The Pursuit of Truth:
Reading that illustrates Value 6: Mortimer Adler: Chapter 8 The Pursuit of Truth (from Six Great Ideas)
Week 2 Required Readings
Ancient Greece and the Desire for a Just Society:

Plato: Selections from the Republic, Book VII

Plato: Crito

Aristotle: Politics, Book IV

From the State of Nature to Civil and Political Society:

John Locke: Two Treatises of Government (the selections here are from The Second Treatise on Government, 1689): pp. 7-20 (through sec. 33); p. 38 (sec. 77); 40-42 (sec. 86-90); pp. 44-47 (sec. 94-99); pp. 58-60 (sec. 123-131); pp. 66-67 (sec. 142); p. 72 (sec. 155)

Week 3 Required Readings and Videos
The Constitution: Its Champions and Its Critics:

James Madison: The Constitution (1787; 1789)

Amendments 1-10

Amendments 11-27

Benjamin Franklin: “Speech in the Convention: At the Conclusion of Its Deliberations” (Sept. 17, 1787)

Thomas Jefferson: Letter to James Madison, Dec. 20, 1787

The Federalist Papers:

James Madison: Federalist No. 10

James Madison: Federalist No. 47

James Madison: Federalist No. 51

Originalism Versus the Living Constitution Theory of Judicial Review:

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Whittington: “How to Read the Constitution” (2006)

Scalia versus Breyer on Supreme Court Judicial Review (videos)

Part I

Part II

Michael C. Dorf: “Who Killed the “Living Constitution?”

Jack M. Balkin: “Alive and Kicking: Why no one truly believes in a dead Constitution”
Week 4 Required Readings
The Rise and Fall of Puritanism: The Attempt to Create an American Theocracy:

John Winthrop: Selections from “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630)

Jonathan Edwards: The Great Awakening: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741)

Benjamin Franklin: “A Witch Trial at Mount Holly” (1730; note: this is a work of satire—fiction—not of journalism)

Separation of Church and State:

Michael Novak: “Faith and the American Founding”

Marci Hamilton: “The Ten Commandments and American Law: Why Some Christians’ Claims to Legal Hegemony Are Not Consistent with the Historical Record” (Sept. 11, 2003)

Thomas Jefferson: Letter to the Danbury Baptists, Jan. 1, 1802

Daniel Dreisbach: “The Mythical ‘Wall of Separation’”

Christopher Clausen: “America’s Design for Tolerance” (2007)
Week 5 Required Readings and Videos
Ruth Benedict: “A Defense of Ethical Relativism”

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “Moral Relativism”

Velasquez, Andre, Shanks, and Meyer: “Ethical Relativism” [explains the view of anthropologists that cultural relativism equates with moral relativism; also offers counter arguments]

Jean-Paul Sartre: “Existentialism Is a Humanism” (1946)

Plato: “The Allegory of the Cave,” from The Republic

William B. Irvine: “Confronting Relativism” (2000)

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “Defining Deviancy Down”

Socrates Meets a Moral Relativist (video)

Debate: Moral Relativism v. Moral Absolutism – Part 1 (video series)

Debate: Moral Relativism v. Moral Absolutism – Part 2

Debate: Moral Relativism v. Moral Absolutism – Part 3

Debate: Moral Relativism v. Moral Absolutism – Part 4

Debate: Moral Relativism v. Moral Absolutism – Part 5

Debate: Moral Relativism v. Moral Absolutism – Part 6
Week 6 Required Readings
Census figures that present evidence on these topics:

Births to unmarried women by country
Marriage and divorce rates by country
Single Parent Households by country (1980 – 2008)
Women in the Workforce rates (Marriage) by Country
Susan M. Bianchi and Lynne Casper: “American Families” (2000)

Walter Williams: “The State Against Blacks”
Note: Since our BU Library owns the Bianchi and Casper and the Williams essays, you will be prompted to sign in with your BU ID and Password. Once you do, you should be given immediate access to their essays.
Encyclopedia of Sociology: “American Families”

Note: After you open the essay, scroll down to p. 120. The article is between pages 120 and 131. The references list for the article is between pages 131 and 133.

Gertrude Himmelfarb: “Second Thoughts on Civil Society”

Stephanie Koontz: “Taking Marriage Private” (2007)

Week 7 Required Readings
The Dispossession of Native Americans:

Howard Zinn: A People’s History of the United States, Chapter 1: Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress (1980/2005)

Slavery:

Howard Zinn: A People’s History of the United States, Chapter 2: Drawing the Color Line (1980/2005)

Frederick Douglass: Selections from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845)

Read these chapters: 1, 2, 4, and 7

“What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” (July 5, 1852)

Robert Hayden: “Runagate Runagate” [note: the speaker in this poem is a runaway slave]

Confronting Segregation and Its Legacy:

Langston Hughes: “I, Too, Sing America” (1932)

“Harlem” (“What happens to a dream deferred?” (1951)

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963)

Dudley Randall: “Ballad of Birmingham” (1969)

Malcolm X: “The Ballot or the Bullet” [full audio and text of the speech delivered on April 12, 1964, in Detroit, Michigan]

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Shelby Steele: “The Double Bind of Race and Guilt” (2001)

New Freedom:

N. Scott Momaday: “The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee” (1976) [note: Tsoai-Talee is Momaday’s Kiowa name]

Sherman Alexie: “The Powwow at the End of the World” (1996)

Natasha Trethewey: “Letter Home” (2002) [note: Trethewey was appointed the 19th United States Poet Laureate in 2012]

Week 8 Required Readings
Timeline for the Women’s Rights Movement in the U.S.

Early Voices for Freedom:

Howard Zinn: A People’s History of the United States, Chapter 6 The Intimately Oppressed (1980/2005)

Benjamin Franklin: “The Speech of Polly Baker” (1747) [Note: this is a work of satire—that is, of fiction—not of journalism)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: “Declaration of Sentiments” (1848)

Sojourner Truth: “Ain’t I a Woman?” (1851/1863)

Fanny Fern: Hints to Young Wives” (1852)

“The Working-Girls of New York” (1868)

Modern Voices of Protest, Freedom, and Reaction:

Virginia Woolf: Selection from A Room of One’s Own (1929)

“Shakespeare’s Sister”

“Professions for Women” (1931)

Rosalind C. Barnett and Caryl Rivers: “Men Are From Earth, and So Are Women. It’s Faulty Research That Sets Them Apart.” (Sept. 3, 2004)

Christina Hoff Sommers: “Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship” (2009)
Week 9 Required Readings
Immigration:

General Background:
Philip Martin and Elizabeth Midgley: “Immigration: Shaping and Reshaping America”
Colonization:
Richard Frethorne: A Letter from an Indentured Servant in Virginia (written in 1623; published in 1881)

The First Records of Anglo-American Colonization

From The Life and Times of Sir Walter Raleigh

Jamestown
Mass immigration from Europe:
Julie Redstone: “Message of the Statue of Liberty”
Henry Cabot Lodge: “For Immigration Restrictions”
The Japanese experience:
“Japanese Americans & the U.S. Constitution
The Latino experience:
Latino Stories

Cultural Pluralism:
“A Different Mirror: A Conversation with Ronald Takaki”
Immigration and Economics:
Greenstone and Looney: “Ten Economic Facts about Immigration”
Reactions to September 11th events:
George Bush: “Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation”

Concerns about Illegal immigration: The Arizona and Alabama laws:
“New Immigration Law”
“California: The Immigration Dilemma”
“Alabama Immigration Law Deterring Investors”

Week 10 Required Readings
Advocates of Limited Government:

Ron Pestritto: “The Birth of the Administrative State: Where It Came From and What It Means for Limited Government”

Ryan Messmore: “A Moral Case against Big Government”

Progressivism and Expansive Government:

Peter Dreier and Dick Flacks: “Patriotism and Progressivism”
John Halpin and Conor P. Williams: “What is Progressivism?”
Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin: “The Progressive Tradition in American Politics” [pay particular attention to the bullet list, Progressive reforms: A century of accomplishments”]
Capitalism and Socialism: Pro and Con:

Capitalists:

Walter Williams: The Entrepreneur as American Hero”

Samuel Gregg: “Markets, Morality, and Civil Society”

Communists and Socialists:

Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935): Chapter VII: “The Case for Socialism”

Marx and Engels: Selection from The Communist Manifesto (1848)

Chapter II: Proletarians and Communists

Week 11 Required Readings
“What Is Civic Engagement?” (2000): [Note: Emphasize the “Wheel of Civic Engagement” graph]

Andrew Carnegie: “Wealth” (1889)

Robert D. Putnam: “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital” (1995)

Steven N. Durlauf: “Bowling Alone: A Review Essay” [Note: This reading is a sociological critique of Putnam’s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000), a book-length expansion of Putnam’s original essay]

Amitai Etzioni: “The Good Society” (1999)

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