November 12, 2015

Welcome to our AP Government class blog! Our activities on the blog will be in the green box located below. Read the activity and follow its instructions. When you are ready to answer the questions required, scroll down to the bottom of the blog page and click on add comment. Type your answers in the box that pops up and at the end of your answers, include your name. You MUST have your name in the comments box or you will NOT receive credit for your work. This is just like putting your name on your paper! ALSO, you must click anonymous from the drop down boxes listed below the comments box, since the comments are submitted to me for review and not published. If you leave the box for Google ID checked, your answers will be lost in space for all eternity (until you redo it!). If you have ANY questions, please let me know! Tip: If you have any doubts or fears about losing your work, do as I do, and copy and paste your answers into a Word document, Notepad, e-mail to yourself, etc., so you have an electronic copy as backup. I will be posting to the class blog on a weekly basis from now on, so stay tuned and check back frequently!

Be reminded that you lose participation points when you are caught on YouTube, Facebook, and similar sites. You may listen to music on a site like www.grooveshark.com that does NOT have videos. If music starts to interfere with your ability to complete your work or stay on task, you will lose that privilege.

Activity:

AP Government – *Be sure to show me your Chapter 9 definitions notes today if you haven’t done so already! *Ch. 9 Test tomorrow on Political Parties definitions and FRQ (Free Response Question). Here are the objectives for today (type your responses in Word or Docs and then copy and paste into the comments box on the blog): I can identify the positives and negatives of policy ideas proposed by politicians. I can complete an FRQ on Political Parties. Tasks: click on the following link to go to an article about Trump’s proposed “Deportation Force”. Read the article and identify what would be 1 or more positives about the proposal (why would people support the plan) and what would be 1 or more negatives about the proposal (why would people be against the plan). *Hint: don’t just think about Republican vs. Democratic views on immigration. Then, answer the following FRQ on Political Parties (you may want to refer to your notes on Interest Groups as well):

1.      Interest Groups and Political Parties each play a significant role in the United States political system, yet they differ in their fundamental goals.

a)     Identify the fundamental goal of interest groups in the political process.

b)     Identify the fundamental goal of political parties in the political process.

c)     Describe two different ways by which interest groups SUPPORT the fundamental goal of political parties in the political process.

d)     For one of the forms of support you described in c), explain two different ways in which that form of support helps interest groups to achieve their fundamental goal in the political process.

If you have time left over, do a google search on the term Cult of Personality and compare that with the term from Chapter 9, Personal Following. How do they differ and has there a Cult of Personality surrounding an American political leader? Is this good or bad? Explain.