In response to Texas businesses and employers, the Texas State Legislature has strongly encouraged the state’s colleges and universities to ensure students learn not only knowledge related to their major/course of study, but also prove they have key marketable skills that will help them become valuable employees. To that end, the TJC Government and Economics Department has developed special assignments to assess student skills in the following areas:
- Communication
- Critical Thinking
- Personal Responsibility
- Social Responsibility
For this assessment you will read about a Supreme Court decision and answer a series of questions about what you’ve read. The questions will be used to assess how well you can:
- communicate your thoughts in writing,
- gather a variety of facts to objectively consider an issue (critical thinking),
- recognize personal dilemmas, connect consequences to choices made/actions taken and which personal values influenced those actions, and
- recognize whether the case indicates social responsibility was being demonstrated (or not).
First read the questions in the assessment below so you will have a general idea of what you will be looking for in the opinion. After reading the questions, then thoroughly read the opinion. You may find it helpful to print the opinion for highlighting or note-taking purposes, or if your computer has highlighting and note-taking features, you may do so without printing. Make sure that you first understand the issue (or problem) in the case and who is affected by the issue. Then make sure you understand the decision made by the majority of the Supreme Court justices and the constitutional basis for their decision.
Answers to the questions should be written in accurate, detailed and complete sentences, using correct grammar and punctuation, without abbreviations or informal jargon. Do NOT copy and paste information from the opinion into the answer block as your response; responses should be IN YOUR OWN WORDS. Most questions will require several sentences or a full paragraph to adequately answer. Trust me when I say that one sentence answers will not do and will not earn you full credit on the assignment. A big part of your grade in this assignment is showing how well you can communicate through writing! If done correctly, this assignment should take one to two hours to complete and submit. (Be sure to hit “submit” upon completion.)
The rubric linked below shows how you will be assessed according to the minimum expectations of academic performance. In addition to the “achieves/doesn’t achieve” performance score on the rubric, you will also receive a numeric grade for your work on this assignment. Please realize that your “score on the rubric” is not the same thing as your “grade for the assignment.” If, through your writing, you only meet the minimum expectations, you will only receive a minimum passing grade. See your syllabus for the value assigned to this assignment.
After reading the opinion, return to this page to answer all the questions listed below.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/249/47/#tab-opinion-1928047Links to an external site.