Niemi's Argument Analysis

I am incredibly interested in ethnic studies or history in general. I am continually fascinated and left in awe on how a minor or other wise insignificant incident could change the face of the earth. For example, how the rhetoric of George W. Bush about Iraq and their supposed weapons of mass destruction would start the longest war in American history. Similarly, I am genuinely interested on how two college students would start on the biggest grassroots political organizations of its time, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale went from petty criminals to national heroes, who at their peak had over 10,000 members alongside

While there are many hypotheses and theories as to why education is important for democratic citizens, there is common and consistent agreement within the literature since the 1970s. There is consistency in the belief that education provides both the skills to become politically engaged and the knowledge to understand and accept democratic principles leading to correlative effects on party identification on both individual and aggregate levels (Golebiowska 1995; Galston 2004). Angus Campbell and Philip E. Converse (1972) describe education as the universal solvent, strongly and positively correlated with a host of valued civic attitudes and behaviors such as political party or ideology formation.

Schools are another important faction in delivering affective socialization, but also deliver instrumental socialization to America's youth. Elementary classroom instruction is generally where children receive their first concrete lessons on the American political system. Teachers perform the important civic duty of instructing young Americans in political history, general laws and rights, and patriotism. Take for example the Pledge of Allegiance, recited across the nation in elementary classrooms.

What makes up a pyramid? 12 lines, 5 faces, 4 triangles, 1 base, and 5 vertexes and in the case of the Great Pyramids of Giza about 2.3 million stone blocks that weigh an average of 2.5 to 15 tons. That according to the time it took to build them they would have had to place and set a stone every 2 to 2 and a half minutes. To put that in perspective some weigh as much or more than an armed military cargo truck. So, imagine dragging a cargo truck with nothing but some strong rope and some other people. Now if you're like most people you can lift maybe 100 pounds. However, the average powerlifter can lift 350 to 400 pounds and that's just lift not pack around or drag across acres of land. Now how did the Egyptians build the Great Pyramid of Giza with blocks that weigh up to 15 tons with the technology they had then? It’s clearly very obtuse to think the pyramids were built by the Egyptians and the Egyptians alone. The question is, who helped them?

American youth, the demographic most important to America’s future, are often excluded from political processes and omitted from election ballots in just about every way. It is my mission as a Junior Statesman and a high school student to break this substandard negative trend, which tarnishes American democracy, by encouraging youth to become more politically active.

The line between teaching history and current events is often blurred within the field of Social Studies, but every four years comes the Presidential Election. This is a current event that cannot be ignored given the amount of media attention and personal debates that occur from the national election. Given these facts, it is nearly impossible not to teach about the ongoing election within school classrooms. After reading Students learn about candidates, issues, civics it is clear that many different approaches are used to inform students about the presidential election, if the election is even discussed within the classroom. The methods used for teaching the presidential election varies across grade levels, some lessons are multidisciplinary, while others focus on Americans civic duties.

basics.” This quote shows how students are struggling in mastering the basics of the fields civics

After reading this quote by Winston Churchill, I think it means that we need to make sure the average voter is informed on issues in our country and around the world. That they understand how they can be an active and informed citizen who participates in the democracy of our country. The people of the United States elect the president, representatives, senate, mayor, and more. It is our responsibility as citizens to take responsibility of this privilege to vote and to make an informed decision on who they want to best represent their country, state, and city. Social Studies class has turned into reading about the past and just memorizing dates and important events. Instead, we as teachers should focus more on teaching students about the world around them and what it actually means for them to have a democracy.

What are children aged 13-17 thinking about? They are thinking about friends, music, homework, after school sports teams and part-time jobs. Students should not be able to vote when they enter high school. High school students are overwhelmed with new responsibilities and freedoms and are not prepared to focus on political issues at this time of their lives. High school students don’t have the life experience necessary to know how politics work. High school students’ brains are not fully developed therefore they often have difficulty making decisions that take consequences into account.

Many people live busy lifestyles therefore many do not have the time to vote. Many people now in days are rushing throughout life and are not taking things day by day. If people only were a bit more open and see how important their vote can contribute to a change in our society they would actually make time. Educating voters and future voters and making time for the voting process may increase the overall turnout. In my opinion education is where it all begins, if you’re not politically educated in who is who and what is what then you’ll never get up and vote. In order for one to do something I think you need to be knowledgeable of what you’re doing not just because your parents or family do it. Young voters need to know that voting is one

II. Thesis: Today I will persuade you that voting should be mandatory for college students, it gives us the opportunity to voice our opinion and make a decision to improve the nation.

The simplistic foundation of Nau’s basic premise regarding human limitation makes his argument compelling. The limitations of the human brain and the abundance of goals make it impossible for a human brain to process a magnitude of information. Politicians deal with their biological limitations by selecting what data is worthy of their attention. Cognitive psychology defines the attention process as focusing cognitive ability on one signal while ignoring others. Politicians rely on heuristic techniques to organize the process of separating what data is worthy and what data is unworthy. Heuristics allow a politician to reduce the cognitive turbulence of making a decision amongst an overabundance of data.

Students across Ontario are required to learn about civics in grade 10, the studies of the rights and duties of citizens in our country. Recently people have debated whether civics should be a mandatory class however, in my opinion civics is an extremely important course that teaches young students, including me, about how things in the government and our society work. Unlike some units in math and science, civics is the only class where I can sit down and not have to question why I’m learning this. We learn important topics like civic responsibilities, our government, and social systems and all these topics combined help students to understand how to become responsible citizens after post-secondary education. It is said that less than half

On the local level, our youth council created small response teams to focus on community issues affecting voter turnout. Surveys and questionnaires were used to gauge why so many young voters chose not to cast a ballot in our recent election. I remember a few responses like, “I didn’t even know there was an election?” Many potential voters did not know how or where to register to vote. Being proactive, our focus was to get an abundance of information to our youth groups before their eighteenth birthday. Student councils and teacher advisors played a crucial role in relaying our resourceful information to new voters. Assemblies and interactive workshops were also conducted to disseminate voting information to all senior class students. Our presentations were designed to show the importance of voting and how political relevance is attained. It streamlined the process to alleviate any concerns on how and where to

When I was younger, I recall being continually told that it was my civic responsibility to become an involved citizen and participate in the political system of our country. However, this idea of being involved seemed so distant that I began to believe that my involvement in the political system was futile. Therefore, I became accustomed to the belief that one person’s vote cannot change a broken system, so my vote could not possibly be a part of the