Current Event Project

You will be required to prepare a brief analysis of a current event in U.S. government during the course. This assignment involves selecting an issue in current American politics that is likely to be highly visible during the time you are taking the course. The topic will be tracked in the print media, especially the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Philadelphia Inquirer supplemented by weekly news magazines, and the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, all located in most local libraries. You may also want to use the Internet to gain news articles from The New York Times and the Washington Post on the World Wide Web, http://www.newyorktimes.com/ (Links to an external site.) and http://www.washingtonpost.com/ (Links to an external site.). The presidential Web site is http://www.whitehouse.gov/ (Links to an external site.) and the Congressional Web site is https://www.congress.gov/ (Links to an external site.). You are expected to cite your sources appropriately and include a “Works Cited” or bibliography at the end of your assignment.
Several methods of citation are acceptable. English courses use the Modern Language Association (MLA) format contained in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 3rd ed. (1988) or later edition. The American Psychological Association (APA) uses a format contained in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 3rd ed. (1983) or later edition. Political Science majors should use the American Political Science Association (APSA) format contained in the Style Manual for Political Science, revised edition (2001). The APSA manual uses a modified version of The Chicago Manual, published by the University of Chicago. This course directive follows the APSA style manual and you can use this Study Guide as a reference for documenting your paper. Any of the above styles for citations are acceptable. Most bookstores have writing handbooks that contain the above writing styles. You may use this study guide as an example of how to correctly cite your sources. Additional citation information is also available at the Penn State University Libraries web page, which is included on your course syllabus. Here are some websites to help you do citations:
http://www.psci.unt.edu/~pmcollins/APSA%20Citation%20and%20Reference%20Guidelines.pdf (Links to an external site.)
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ (Links to an external site.)
Here is a link to show you how to make your bibliography:
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-project…
Here is a link to show you how to do in-text referencing in the MLA style: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/02…
Here is a link to show you how to do in-text referencing in the APA style: http://www.noodletools.com/helpdesk/kb/index.php?a…
Sloppy note-taking during the preparatory phase prior to writing a draft is the number one cause of inadvertent plagiarism. As you collect articles in your notebook, be sure to record bibliographic information for every article so that you can properly cite the author’s work in your report (author, date, and page number). Exercise care in documenting direct quotes and paraphrasing or summarizing the author’s work in your report. ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTION TO THE CURRENT EVENTS PROJECT
As you proceed through this course, you should build a bibliography of sources you are citing for your current event analyses. You should include appropriate citations with this paper. Your assignment now is to write a five-to-ten-page discussion of the role of the media, voters, political parties, and interest groups in the context of your current event. Your paper must deal with the following questions: What are the various “sides” to the issue, and who are the players associated with each side? For example, what interest groups, political parties, public opinion polls, or individuals have emerged related to your topic? What are the objectives and concerns of these actors, and what policy options are they advocating? Finally, how have the governmental actors (President, Congress, and courts) responded to these pressures?This assignment is easier than you think. The assignment does not ask you to decide which side is “right” nor does it ask you to identify which side you favor. Instead, we want you to understand the powertics of “who gets what, how”in the American political system. Also, this is an opportunity for you to review the important aspects of the U.S. government as you prepare for the final.
 

Museum Paper InstructionsArizona College is about to build a brand-new art museum on campus and has been endowed with a significant sum of money for the purchase of new works of art (this is not really true!).As a student at the college and art expert, you have been asked to help the curatorial team select two new artworks for our growing collection. You will need to go online to a museum’s listed below and choose two works that you think would be most appropriate for the context of our museum. You will need to write a letter to the curatorial committee describing each work and explaining why you think it would be a good choice for our museum. “I think it’s really pretty” would not be a valid argument nor is monetary value of a given work.In support of the works you chose tell the committee about the formal qualities or the work, the content, and why it would fit into the context of a museum visited mostly by Arizona College students and members of the local community.Make the works enticing for our committee—you want to convince them that you have made the right choice! Again, the committee is most interested in historically important and interesting artworks and not the monetary value or the subjective beauty of the objects. Be sure to mention the artist (if known), title and date of each piece and briefly describe the style and what each depicts.You may want to mention in your letter where, how, or for whom the works were made as well as how they were used. Be sure to discuss the cultural and political factors that contributed to the inception of each piece. Briefly explain the narrative (if one exists) and highlight the most important and interesting aspects of the work. Be sure to include your own observations and ideas about each work. Do not rephrase or quote excessively from the museum’s literature. (the collector won’t be impressed!)The paper should be three- pages in length and must be typed and double-spaced (750-800 words). Papers with more than one-inch margins or a font size less or greater than 12 points will not be accepted.Please note that titles of artworks should be italicized or underlined.Proofreading is also essential as spell check does not catch everything (i.e. their/there, peace/piece). The essay needs a thesis sentence, proper agreement of nouns and verbs, verb tense agreement, correct spelling, correct punctuation, and a conclusion. You also should demonstrate your ability to use specific art history terms when necessary.If you need help expressing your ideas you can go to the Writing Center (room 808 in the library) for technical advice on grammar, format, etc., (Also, online resources available!). You must use proper Chicago Manual of Style footnote citation format for all of your sources (see the paper citation guidelines) and include a bibliography that lists at least two online sources in addition to your textbook. What to footnote? Historical facts, definitions of terms or anything that can be considered common knowledge does not need to be cited.For example, Columbus landed in the Bahamas in 1492 is a known fact and does not need a footnote. However, an interpretation that is not fact but one person’s opinion must be cited.Since an interpretation is debatable and not a provable fact you must cite the author as the originator of this idea. Give credit where credit is due.Observations, IDEAS, opinions or interpretations that are taken from another source EVEN if you put those ideas into your own words MUST be footnoted in the same way as a direct quote. Footnotes should appear at the end of the sentence (not the paragraph) that includes the cited information.[1] For subsequent footnotes that draw from the same source, the author’s name and page number will suffice.[2] If the subsequent footnote is a reference to the same author and the same page number as the one that came immediately before then the term ibid is used.[3]Suggested Museum websites to visit:The Bowers Museum, Santa Ana (Modern and contemporary art/exhibitions): www.bowers.org. Museum of Contemporary Art Grand Avenue, MOCA, L.A. (Modern and contemporary art): www.moca.org.The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA): www.lacma.org.The Broad (Modern and contemporary art): https://www.thebroad.orgThe Getty Villa (Ancient Greek and Roman art): https://www.getty.edu/visit/villa/ This is a creative project so have fun with your choices! [1] Henry M. Sayre, Writing about Art (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1995), 76-83.[1] Sayre, 81.[1] Ibid.

Using your approved strategic plan from the Wk 2 – Strategic Plan Research assignment, complete the following:Create a 5- to 7- slide Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation, with speaker notes and visuals on each slide, that will sell your identified improvements to the strategic plan, based on your Wk 4 analysis.Include the following: Summarize the threats and challenges you have identified within the current strategic plan. Determine how to execute the strategic initiatives in order to address the threats and challenges. Explain proposed process improvements. Assess whether additional resources are needed. Describe how resources should be used in the application of the strategic plan. Utilize KPIs to justify the financial investment and to measure the success of the proposed improvements to the strategic plan. Justify your recommendations based on anticipated Return on Investment (ROI). Discussion questions Chris Freeman Repond in125 words Professor and Class, This week we are examining examples of change that failed and what could have been done to prevent the failure from happening. Through the last 18 years, I have seen a lot of changes and modifications to the way my company has conducted business overall. Upper management had the idea of rebranding the company about nine years ago in order to promote growth and attract new customers. The rebranding included new logos, changing the name of the company to reflect newness and changing the pay structure of the employees in order to demonstrate a high level of involvement from the owners down to the line workers. Creating a brand that could be recognized was certainly a big hit with the employees as well as the community. It was considered to be easier to identify for consumers, kind of like the Golden Arches of McDonalds, you see the symbol and know what to expect. This idea worked most of the time since we were dealing with the same communities that we had been working with previously. Although, the brand actually resembled logos from other companies and created a little confusion in other markets. Changing the name created a better way to actually attempt to start over as a company and demonstrate to everyone that the new owners knew what they were doing and were doing things differently than previous ownership conducted business. This did not go over well for the longer term customers that had grown very fond of the way things had been done before and did not like the changes, they felt like it was a mark on the original owner’s face and reputation. (Side note: the original owner was the father of the current owners and he passed away just after the launch of the rebranding.) The biggest failure out of the changes that were instituted was the failure in the restructuring of how to pay the employees. All employees had to be evaluated by their management team members and that evaluation would determine their exact pay and job title. This worked great for the employees that had great relationships with their supervisors however, the other employees that worked hard and just did not have time to kiss butt got the short end of the stick. This pay and title restructuring lasted about 2 years until the owners discovered that they were losing more employees than they were retaining and that the community was starting to talk about the pay issues. There are currently new standards for job performance evaluation and merit raises in effect and things are going much better. Bradley Sanders Repond in125 words The change that we would be talking about here is when the accounting system in my previous company was getting moved from offline to online, which means that most of the file work would be over and the same would be converted into online files and all calculations would be done online. The employees in the organisation did not receive this change very well because they were tenured employees and were very comfortable and used to the offline work. They also anticipated that the loss of jobs is also a possibility since the manual work would be done away with and only online filing would be done. So at the initial stages this change failed because of the non-cooperation of the employees and it was merely because of their implicit fear. This could be prevented by giving appropriate training to the employees so that they can get comfortable with the online system and explaining them that what is there in it for them in the long run so that they could have been much more adaptive towards the new way of working.

Examine two of the films listed in this module. One must be a foreign film from the M6 Foreign Films Selections (The King’s Speech (2010), My Left Foot (1989), Roma (2018), Pink (2016), The Farewell (2019), Central Station (Central do Brasil) (1998), City of God (2002), Wadjda (2012), The Seven Samurai (1954), Neerja (2016), The Lobster (Greece) (2015), Ex Machina (UK) (2014), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Cinema Paradiso (1988), The Forest (2016), The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001)) and the other an independent film from the M6 New Independent Cinema Selections (This is Spinal Tap (1984), Waiting for Guffman (1996), Reservoir Dogs (1992), Eighth Grade (2018), Trust (1990), Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me (1992), Waitress (2007), Lost in Translation (2003), Sideways (2004), Babel (2006), Bridman (2014), Boyhood (2014), Blue Jasmine (2013), American Hustle (2013), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Silver Linings Playbook (2012), The Witch (USA) (2016)). Write a short (1000 words) essay focused on the following question: What are the characteristics of independent film with particular regard to performance beyond the basic definition? In other words, how do your films EXPAND the basic definition? You must do more than merely show how each of your movies meet the basic criteria as an independent film. The movies in this section are easily identified as meeting the basic definition, but you need to go further in your analysis for your essay. Please avoid extensively summarizing the plot at the expense of analyzing the actor’s performance. Please place this information in your header:NameWord CountIndependent Film Title (date)International Film Title (date)Give your essay a title and center it below the header information.I’ve received several inquiries from students who are having trouble understanding the prompt. The presentation, videos and readings will help greatly, but if you are still wondering what to do, I’ll try to simplify it for you as much as possible here:You know the basic definition of an independent film from the presentations, readings and videos.You know that independent and foreign films both fit the basic definition (e.g., budget, produced outside the big studio, cast, story, etc.).As you know from watching the presentation in this module, when you watch movies today with strong ensemble casts or art films with international actors made independently outside the dominance of the corporate studios, you are witnessing the effect of foreign films on the Hollywood film industry.Therefore, do not merely describe how your independent and international films meet the basic definition, but focus on how they expand the definition. Find elements in the films that you recognize as being unique and influential. Consider how your films might affect the way big-budget films are made. Some examples include camera techniques, storyline, personal issues that concern a director, a role that a celebrity might not usually perform.This assignment is the culmination of the course, pushing you to think for yourself and try to find elements that distinguish your independent and foreign film from the mainstream. You can’t merely say ”budget under $20M” or “premiered at Sundance” and leave it at that. As an example, the producers of the big-budget ($110+M) big-studio bomb Ghost in the Shell could have learned a lot from the independent film Ex Machina ($16M). A good essay on Ex Machina would focus on the elements in the film that make it important and meaningful other than its budget and foreign origin (UK). I might also bring in examples from the film Her, which has an independent feel to it (what does that mean?), released by a small U.S. studio and had a relatively low budget. A simple way to look at this assignment is to ask whether your chosen films could teach Hollywood and the money machine of CGI-driven movies. Many students seem to think this assignment is about identifying why their choice is independent when the basic definition is clear in the presentation and readings. This assignment requires higher levels of critical thinking. The best papers are very specific in saying how these films EXPAND the basic definition. What can Hollywood learn from Indies? Why are independent film festivals like Sundance so important? Why do top actors do indies when they can make more money doing television or a CGI feature? What do your selected films have that could enhance major studio film making?

100 words Reply
The role of race in efforts to control and distribute economic, political, and cultural resources is being the “master category”. Michael Omi is a professor of Sociology and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkley whose works include Comparative Racialization, Racial Theory and Politics, Racial/Ethnic Classification, and Identity. Omi is an Associate Director of Hass Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society (HIFIS). Omi and Howard Winant, Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara, developed the Theory of Racial Formation. In “The Theory of Racial Formation”, Omi and Winant explain that through enslavement in the United States, “race has become the template of both difference and inequality” (pg 106). Through Discursive formation, social class structure was established based on race in the United States where the white male had the most power. Stuart Hall is a British-Jamaican Sociologist who emphasized that all cultures and societies were shaped by political, economic, and social forces. He is also the author of “The West and the Rest: Discourse of Power”. According to Stuart Hall, “Discourse is about the production of knowledge through language. But it is itself produced by a practice: ‘discursive practice’- the practice of producing meaning” (pg 201). As a result, through slavery, Americans assume that whites are higher in the social class structure than African Americans. In the documentary “13th:” From Slave to Criminal with One Amendment by Ava DuVernay, it can be seen that this difference in power led to discrimination and Segregation such as the Jim Crow laws. Due to the lack of influence that African Americans had on the United States government, schools were able to refuse students of a different race other than white. This created more gaps between the racial groups because less education meant less available jobs and power in society. As a result, a race created a social structure where African Americans did not have much power when it came to economic, political, and cultural resources because they didn’t get good jobs, they had little power to influence the government, and they were criminalized.
While whites had wealth, higher income, and power over decision-making through voting and have government positions, African Americans did not and could not have representation when it came to laws and elections. Similar to the “West and the Rest”, the Whites were the dominant and “desired” race while other races were the “rest” who were in the lower class and had little power. In the documentary “13th:” From Slave to Criminal with One Amendment by Ava DuVernay, when slavery came to an end, whites used their power to their advantage. Whites started categorizing African Americans as criminals in order to enslave them again, and later in the early 20th century, movies were made to stereotype African Americans as rapists and a threat to the white community. Through the Regime of Truth, whites started believing that these false stereotypes were true and made this a reason for oppressing the Black community. Michael Foucault and Stuart Hall describe a “regime of truth” as a “way of thinking that defines what is true and limits options of thought about a particular topic or debate” (Week 1 lecture slides).
The meaning of race changed from being a category based on the ethnicity of people to “social construction” and a “master category” because race “has become the template of both difference and inequality” (The Theory of Racial Formation, pg 106). Race is currently defined as ” a concept that signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies”. Treating people differently because of their race is racist which is the state of having racism. For example, in the documentary “13th:” From Slave to Criminal with One Amendment by Ava DuVernay, racism can be seen through the stereotyping of Black people as criminals and police violence that was targeted towards Black people. In “The Theory of Racial Formation”, Omi and Winant explain that “A racial project can be defined as racist if it creates or reproduces structures of domination based on racial significations and identities” (pg 128). As a result, through discursive strategy, which is to assign value and meaning to representation, the term race has a negative connotation. In a way, the term “race” has remained the same in the fact it categorizes people into certain groups.