For the final evaluation in this course, you will be asked to make a video presentation reflecting on these two inter-related questions: What is liberty within the American political tradition? What responsibilities come along with being an American citizen?
The video should be a minimum of 5 minutes, a maximum of 8 minutes.
This video should include references to at least 2 different thinkers we have read this semester, including at least two quotations from each. These quotations should be integrated into your final presentation as you would in a paper – they should be used to support your argument, not just stand alone “inspirational” quotes found on $2 posters. Quotations need to include citations (at bare minimum, author’s last name and the page number from our readings.)
These videos do not need to have high production value but if you wish to submit your recording to an AI program and have it generate a video to accompany your audio, you may. You absolutely SHOULD NOT use AI to generate the text of your reflection. You can speak in the first person but, where possible, try to engage in analytical reflection instead of personal reflection. For example, instead of saying “I found this text to be really difficult and it made me angry” try to say “This text is complicated and, in places, can be quite frustrating.” This captures the same argument and is a reflection but moves the analysis away from your experience (which no one else can have) into an analytical one (which can be shared by anyone engaging in a similar kind of analysis). The use of AI to generate ANY PORTION of the written element for this assignment will result earn an F for this assignment.
Videos will be evaluated on this criteria:
97-100 points – Submission has a clear and concise thesis statement, displays an excellent understanding of the topic, provides a persuasive amount of evidence to support the thesis with appropriate citations, raises a fundamental question, concern, or connection to other material in the course.
90-96 points – Submission has a clear thesis statement, displays an understanding of the topic, provides sufficient evidence to support the thesis, and has little to no grammatical errors.
80-89 points – Submission has a thesis statement, displays an understanding of the topic, provides some evidence to support the thesis, and has infrequent grammatical errors.
70-79 points – Submission has an unclear thesis statement, displays some understanding of the topic, provides little evidence to support the thesis, and has frequent grammatical errors but is still intelligible.
60-69 points – Submission lacks thesis statement, displays fundamental misunderstandings of the topic, lacks evidence, and has consistent grammatical errors that undermine the intelligibility of the essay.
50 points – Video has been submitted but fails to meet the minimum standards and is unacceptable
0 points – No submission
Readings to pick from:
– Marbury v. Madison
– McCullough v. Maryland
– Andrew Jackson, “Proclamation Regarding Nullification”
– John Calhoun, selection from “Fort Hill Address”
– Barron v. City of Baltimore (1833)
– Dred Scott v. Sandford
– 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments
– Gitlow v. New York
– Employment Division v. Smith
– Boerne v. Flores
– George Washington: Farewell Address
– James Monroe, Seventh Annual Message to Congress
– Theodore Roosevelt, selections from 1904 Annual Message to Congress
– Woodrow Wilson, “Fourteen Points”
– Henry Cabot Lodge, Speech Opposing the League of Nations
– George Marshall, Speech to Harvard Alumni Association June 1947
– Robert Taft, selections from Speech on the North Atlantic Treaty
– Dwight Eisenhower, Farewell Address
– George H. W. Bush, Joint Session of Congress September 11, 1990
– George W. Bush, Statement by the President September 11, 2001
– George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Address
– Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President on Osama bin Laden”
– Joe Biden, Remarks on Afghanistan (2022)
– Orestes Brownson, “On the Laboring Classes”
– Andrew Carnegie, “Wealth”
– William Graham Sumner, “The Absurd Effort to Make the World Over”
– William Jennings Bryan, “Cross of Gold”
– Franklin Roosevelt, “Commonwealth Club Address”
– Franklin Roosevelt, “1944 State of the Union Address”
– Lyndon Johnson, “Great Society Speech”
– John Rawls, “Justice as Fairness”
– Milton Friedman, “Capitalism and Freedom”
– Alexis de Tocqueville, Vol. 2, Part Two, Chapter 19, 20
– Alexander Stephens, selections from the “Cornerstone Speech”
– Fredrick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
– Plessy v. Ferguson
– Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
– Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
– James Baldwin, Address to the Cambridge Union (1965)
– Gloria Steinem, “Living the Revolution”
– Phylus Schaefly, “What’s Wrong with ‘Equal Rights’ for Women?”
– Obergefell v. Hodges (majority opinion)
– Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Division (majority opinion)
– Tocqueville, Vol. 1, Part II, 5
– Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address”
– Abraham Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address”
– Theodore Roosevelt, “Ordered Liberty”
– Ronald Reagan, “Farewell Address”
– Barack Obama, “Farewell Address”
– Calvin Coolidge, Address at the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence
– Thurgood Marshall, Remarks on the United States Bicentennial
– Tocqueville, Vol. 2, Part 4, Chapter 1, 2, 6, 8
– Orestes Brownson: On the Democratic Principle