Civic Engagement Project

What?

A project where you focus both on learning and doing.

For this assignment, I am seeking your personal, first-hand, detailed, and ethnographic experience via a specific Civic Engagement Assignment.

There are 10 items listed below. 

Choose 2, one from Comprehension and one from Action to engage with over the next 6 weeks. This means you cannot write about the time you went to a School Board Meeting last year or the time you went to a protest when you were two. Any Civic Engagement activity you do must be timely, meaning you do it during the time you are enrolled in this class. 

Choose from: 

1.  Observe a local City Council or School Board Meeting

(NOTE: THESE MEETINGS ARE ONLINE NOW - YOU CAN STILL ATTEND "LIVE." MANY ARE THEN POSTED TO YOUTUBE).

• Guiding Questions:
  • What City Council Meeting did you observe? What day was the meeting?
  • Does the meeting appear democratic in orientation?
  • How can you tell one way or another that they are democratic?
  • What kinds of issues were discussed? How are they timely issues today? 
  • How and under what context are everyday people allowed to speak?  
  • Have you attended a meeting like this before? What did you get from the experience? 
  • Have you had any previous experience with engaging in local politics before now? 
  • Can you see yourself attending another meeting like this in the future? Why or why not? 

2.   Volunteer

While you can volunteer in person, there are many ways to volunteer from your home base that includes writing letters or making phone calls. Here are some examples:

• Contact your local party headquarters and see if you can phone bank or otherwise volunteer from home.
• Volunteer for a Particular Candidate
• Write letters to get underrepresented voters to the polls Links to an external site.. 
• Volunteer for a particular issue, like around the Green New Deal Links to an external site., or another political issue you are passionate about 
• Find another way to volunteer in a politically oriented way. 
• Spend collectively 2-3 hours engaging in your volunteering

Guiding Questions:

• What are the goals set in this volunteering?
• Who did you choose to volunteer for and why?
• What did you do? 
• What do you think about what you did?
• Did it feel politically engaging? Politically useful? Why or why not?
• Can you see yourself volunteering again? Why or why not?

3. Research a Social Movement Group 

Explore one of the Following Social Movement Groups/Issues:

• United We Dream Links to an external site.
• Honor the Earth Links to an external site.
• Tenants Together Action Fund Links to an external site.
• The Fight for $15 Links to an external site.
• The Dream Defenders Links to an external site.
• March for Our Lives Links to an external site.

Guiding Questions:

• What group did you research?
• What are the issues they organize around?
• How does this group seek to engage people around the issues?
• How do they organize, and what methods do they use?

• What is this group trying to get people to do or to know? 
• What tactics are taken to do this work? Are they effective tactics?
• How did you learn about them?
• What is your experience in engaging with groups' online presence?
• Does this group have an engaging political message, why or why not? 
• Once you have participated and learned more: do you feel any different than you did before your involvement in the group? Why or why not? Explain.

4. Listen to two Different, non-commercial, Political Podcasts representing either the Progressive, Moderate (Centrist), and Conservative views. Listen to two podcasts from two different perspectives.

• •   Guiding Questions: 
• What stands out to you about listening to podcasts as a way to learn about political news?
• What insight into politics or government does listening to these podcasts give you?
• Does listening to these shows differ from engaging with mainstream political media (like watching the news on TV)? If yes, how? 
• Are either of these shows something you would continue to engage with in the future? Why or why not? 
• Does this podcast just confirm your own beliefs or does it challenge your perspective?
• Find some Podcast Options to choose from in this table.
• Podcasts are available on platforms like Spotify, Apple, and wherever podcasts are found and some are additionally posted to YouTube

Examples Below (you can also choose something not on the list, though you will need to identify where it lands on the political spectrum).

5. Call & Write your political representatives a letter about a timely political issue (legislation, their action, or inaction on a specific issue).
   ****IF YOU CALL, YOU MUST CALL UNTIL YOU TALK TO SOMEONE. NO VOICEMAILS!!!! *******If you write, include a copy of your letter with your assignment. ******

• • Guiding Questions:
    • What is the issue you are writing your representatives about? Is it a federal or state issue? 
    • Which representative do you reach out to?  What are you asking that they do in response to your issue? 
    • You must both WRITE to your representative as well as ALSO PHONE their office (if you cannot call for some reason, you need to choose a second method of communicating with your representative). Note the methods used to contact them.  
    • Base your contact on research about the issue
    • Did you get a response, if so, what was it?
    • Have you contacted your representative before? Why or why not? 
    • What do you think about the act of contacting your representative now that you have made this contact? 
    • Include evidence of contact. 

6. Register 5 eligible people to vote, and discuss why they choose to engage.

(You do not have to register others in person, but you can guide them on how to AND you must include evidence-pictures work the best, selfies, etc).* (**)

 How to register :

• Check eligibility to register to vote. Make sure that you or the person registered is eligible to vote. Check here:  https://www.wikihow.com/Register-to-Vote-in-the-United-States)  Links to an external site.
• You can register to vote online or in person. Link to register online here: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-registration Links to an external site.

• • Respond to questions AND Provide evidence of this (photo, personal testimony/quote from the person who registered). 
  • Guiding questions:
    • Who did you register to vote? 
    • How do you know them?
    • Why weren't they registered before? What did you say to persuade them to register? 
    • How did they register? (online, DMV, other?) 
    • What is the most important political issue to the person registering to vote? 
      • Submit evidence (for example, upload a photo of you and this person registering,  or the person registering if they did it from home, this person taking a selfie of them voting (if you are not together while registering), AND a short quote (testimony) from the person registering to vote to respond to the following questions:
      • Why did you decide to register to vote? 
      • What issues matter most to you?

*You can register yourself if you are eligible and not already registered. 

** If you/they are out of state, make sure you register them for a mail-in ballot (unless their state is doing that automatically). 

7. Create Political Art relevant to this political moment/and or course themes

1. • Create original art that relates to the course and/or this political moment (Can be visual, painting, collage, music, etc.) Must be relevant to the course material! 
   • Submit evidence of your art
   • Share your work with 5 others (THIS DOES NOT HAVE TO BE IN PERSON! This does not have to be with classmates. ONLINE/PHONE SHARING IS FINE-- email, text, post to social media). 
   • Discuss the motivation and reasoning behind your work.
   • Submit evidence of your ‘sharing and discussing’ your work.
   • Document your experience of development of the piece, as well as your experience in sharing, and of the reactions to the piece in your written response

You will be graded based on:

• Completion of two different Civic Engagement Activities
• Written Response submitted by the final deadline of _________
• Review the grading rubric for info on graded requirements

8. Engage with two different Sunday morning Politics shows.

The shows are: “Face the Nation” (CBS); “This Week” (ABC); “Fox News Sunday” (Fox); or Meet the Press (NBC). These shows feature political insiders and members of the media. These shows come on live Sunday mornings but are later posted to YouTube. Include the date the show aired. Most are aired during the time of the class. 

Guiding Questions:

• What is your impression of what you saw?
• What were the major news events covered when you watched the show? (were the shows you watched on the same date or different dates?)
• Did the guests answer the questions or avoid them?
• How would you rate the interviewer on their willingness to press the guest? Ask good follow-up questions.
• What did you get from your experience in watching these shows? Have you watched it before? Would you watch it again?

9. Learn About an Interest Group

An Interest Group is a group of people drawn or acting together in support of a common interest or to voice a common concern.

Examples of Interest Groups:

• AARP Links to an external site.
• Sierra Club Links to an external site.
• Greenpeace Links to an external site.
• NRA Links to an external site.
• Planned Parenthood Links to an external site.
• ACLU Links to an external site.
• NAACP Links to an external site.
• NOW Links to an external site.
• GLAD Links to an external site.

Guiding Questions

• What does this interest group do?
• How do they organize?
• How do they get support?
• Would you become a member of the interest group or sign up for their mailing list? (Why, why not?)
• Has this interest group had success in organizing people? Influencing politics? If so, how?
• Is this interest group a good way to organize people around this issue? Why or Why not?

10.  Join a Grassroots Political Organization

A grassroots movement uses the people in a given district, region, or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at the local, regional, national, or international levels.

Here are a few examples:

• Indivisible Links to an external site.
• Community Coalition Links to an external site. Links to an external site.
• The Sunrise Movement Links to an external site.
• Another group you find

Guiding Questions

• What is this movement organized around?
• How long has this group existed?
• What do you do as a member?
• What do you like or dislike about participating with this group?
• Can you see yourself participating with other grassroots groups?

Then What?

• Write a 4 - 6 page paper detailing your first-person experience of engaging with the activities you completed, what you learned, and your analysis of what you did.
• Using a thesis statement, write about what occurred AND about your experience of engaging with these activities or actions.
• Double-Spaced, 12 pt font, 1 in margins all around.
• Include an ORIGINAL title (Not 'Civic Engagement'-but rather title it based on what you did or what you got out of it). 
• After engaging in this project, what does the reflection on American Democracy?