Exploring Policy Solutions to Today’s Problems

Abstract

Through feedback and revision, this writing assignment will help students develop writing, library research, and critical thinking skills. This assignment consists of three submissions over two topics. The first brief requires two submissions: an initial and a final. The second policy brief topic requires one submission of a new topic. The assignment...

Download this resource to see full details. Download this resource to see full details.

Details

Subject Area(s):

Applied Sociology/Evaluation Research, Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems, Policy Analysis, Public Policy, Social Change, Social Welfare/Social Work

Resource Type(s):

Assignment

Class Level(s):

College 300, College 400

Class Size(s):

Medium, Small

Usage Notes

Used in a 16-week semester class with 20-25 students and a maximum of 30 unless there is a co-instructor or teaching assistant. While time intensive, our experience has been that the downstream benefits of this assignment are apparent in our student's work.
The following are steps the instructor can utilize to introduce the assignment and help...

Learning Goals and Assessments

Learning Goal(s):

1. Identify current social policy issues.
2. Analyze social issues using empirical evidence.
3. Create policy recommendations based on empirical evidence that are applicable and can be reasonably implemented.
4. Strengthen written communication skills.

Goal Assessment(s):

1. This goal is assessed using the rubric in the section of the paper, Scope of the Problem and Context. Accomplishing this goal allows students to connect social issues to policies. Specifically, the ability to identify a policy issue is illustrated by the student's description of the social issue that the policy addresses or could address.
2. This goal is assessed in the section of the paper, Current Policy, and Alternatives, using the assignment rubric. Specifically, students are expected to be able to use sound empirical evidence to support claims of current and proposed policy solutions.
3. Reviewing the student's work in the Policy Recommendations section using the assignment rubric will assess this goal. The student is thought to accomplish this goal when they illustrate how to address a social issue by creating ways to activate agency toward a solution.
4. This goal is assessed using the relative scoring rubric categories and comparing those scores across paper assignments.