Students will write a report comparing and contrasting certain aspects of two presidencies: those of Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The two-term Obama Presidency is presented in chapter 15 and the first two years of the Trump presidency in chapter 16 of our main text. Due to the abridged nature of our books coverage of the Trump presidency, students may supplement their discussions of Trump from the Wikipedia article, Presidency of Donald Trump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Donald_Trump
Each student report should be somewhat unique, reflecting individual perceptions and interests. That said, every report should have some commonalities: a title (of the students choosing), an appropriate introduction to the report, a body of material, and a conclusion. The introduction should include a thesis statement of what the student hopes to accomplish or show with the report.
The body of the report MUST include a section that responds to focus areas required for this exercise. Students are welcome to include the topics in the flow of prose, or to separate them into a subsection called focus issues. There are five focus areas to address. If our main text does not provide sufficient information, students can use other sources, like Wikipedia, as long as the outside sources are cited. Outside sources are not required.
1) Compare the background and experience each man brought to the Oval Office.
2) Compare the political and/or economic conditions of the country at the time the two candidates became president. Were the candidates able to make the inherited setting work to their advantage? If so, in what ways?
3) What were the distinguishing characteristics or dynamics of each presidency?
4) In what ways, if any, did the office of the presidency or practice of presidential influence evolve, adapt or change during each presidency?
5) For each president: Identify two other presidencies in history that were comparable in significant ways.
The report should be a minimum of 1,000 words (about 3 typed pages with some fonts). The report should not be more than 1,800 words. Style and format is up to the student, but 1.5 line spacing is preferred along with type font size 10, 11 or 12. Students may use easy page citations to our text, incorporating the page number (p. 201-02) in parentheses. Alternatively (or additionally), formal footnotes or endnotes may be used.
All quoted or closely paraphrased material must be cited. Additionally, ideas that are not common knowledge should be linked to the place they were found (i.e., concepts drawn from Wikipedia article on Donald Trump). Student work should be provided in a Word document or PDF. Please, no page-long paragraphs. Break up your work a little. Sub-headers within the paper are fine.
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