Week 1 — Taking Apart a Founding Argument: Claims, Kinds, and Counts

Assignment 1 of the term — take apart a founding argument the way a political scientist does, and explain it to someone new to the subject.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, evidence-based analysis. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the reasoning you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Political Analysis Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together on one founding text.

The task

Your shared text is the Declaration's second paragraph, adopted in 1776, as the National Archives transcript prints it. Its premises open: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Its standard is that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed", and its conclusion is that when a government becomes destructive of those ends, "it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it". In this week's claim sort, 4 claims from the paragraph were sorted by kind, and 3 of them are normative.

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic and citing your evidence:

1. Article I, Section 3 gives two Senators from each State, and there are 50 States. How many members does the Senate have?
2. In the claim sort of the Declaration's second paragraph, 4 claims are sorted and 3 of them are normative. How many of the sorted claims are empirical-leaning?
3. Lasswell's Politics: Who Gets What, When, How appeared in 1936, and Easton's The Political System appeared in 1953. How many years after Lasswell's book did Easton's book appear?
4. In the same claim sort, 3 of the 4 sorted claims are normative. What fraction of the sorted claims is normative, written as a decimal?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: sort the claim "the Senate has 100 members" as empirical or normative, name the evidence that checks it, and write one normative claim about the same institution. Explain in a sentence why the two claims share a topic but differ in kind.
• Problem 2: name the empirical-leaning claim, quoted exactly, and explain why it describes how things are rather than how they ought to be. Then state the paragraph's conclusion and its unstated premise.
• Problem 3: match each thinker to his shorthand definition, with the year and the title. Then apply Lasswell's three questions (who gets what, when, how) to an illustrative campus club whose bylaws let members remove an officer by a majority vote at a called meeting.
• Problem 4: explain why an argument made mostly of normative claims cannot be settled by evidence alone, and name the one claim evidence could check. Then compare the Declaration with the club's bylaw: which one names a judge and a procedure, and which one does not?

Explain it to a non-expert

A coworker read a chatbot summary and asks you, "So the Declaration says we have a right to life, liberty, and property, and the facts prove it, right?" Write a 3–5 sentence message that corrects the trio, explains in everyday words the difference between a claim you can check and a claim you have to argue, reports that 3 of the 4 sorted claims are normative, and names one limit: the transcript shows how the argument is built, not whether its premises are true. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a neighbor reading a homeowners' association rule that says the board "may raise dues whenever expenses require." Model answer: "The rule mixes two kinds of statements. Whether expenses went up is something you can check in the budget. Whether the board should be the one to decide is a question about what is fair, so the budget alone cannot settle it. Notice, too, that the rule never says who decides when expenses truly require a raise."

Use that pattern for the Declaration, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four answers, the four brief interpretations, and your message to the coworker before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Answer in your own words. Show calculations and quote the transcript when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one calculation or explanation, even if your first attempt was correct.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you. Keep the National Archives transcript open, and check every phrase the chatbot quotes against it.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for an introductory political science course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about sorting claims by kind and taking apart the argument in the Declaration's second paragraph. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a statistic, a study, a court case, or a quotation, and never name a living politician or take a side on a live partisan question.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The text: the Declaration's second paragraph (1776), quoted only as the National Archives transcript prints it. Its trio is "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness", not "life, liberty, and property", which is Locke's trio. In the claim sort, 4 claims were sorted: "all men are created equal" (normative), "Governments are instituted among Men" (empirical-leaning), the consent standard (normative), and "it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it" (the normative conclusion).
PROBLEM P1: Article I, Section 3 gives two Senators from each State, and there are 50 States. How many members does the Senate have?
PROBLEM P2: In the claim sort of the Declaration's second paragraph, 4 claims are sorted and 3 of them are normative. How many of the sorted claims are empirical-leaning?
PROBLEM P3: Lasswell's Politics: Who Gets What, When, How appeared in 1936, and Easton's The Political System appeared in 1953. How many years after Lasswell's book did Easton's book appear?
PROBLEM P4: In the same claim sort, 3 of the 4 sorted claims are normative. What fraction of the sorted claims is normative, written as a decimal?
After the four answers, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, sort "the Senate has 100 members" with its evidence and write a matching normative claim; for P2, name and explain the empirical-leaning claim and state the conclusion and the unstated premise (who judges when a government has become destructive); for P3, match Lasswell (1936, who gets what, when, how) and Easton (1953, the authoritative allocation of values) and apply Lasswell's three questions to an illustrative campus club whose bylaws let members remove an officer by a majority vote at a called meeting; for P4, explain why a mostly normative argument cannot be settled by evidence alone, name the one claim evidence could check, and compare the Declaration with the club's bylaw on whether a judge and a procedure are named. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a coworker who believes the Declaration says "life, liberty, and property" and that the facts prove it, correcting the trio, explaining the two kinds of claim in everyday words, reporting that 3 of the 4 sorted claims are normative, and naming one limit. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: correct computations (20 points), political analysis (48 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (16 points), and showing the evidence so it can be checked (16 points). For each of P1-P4, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 2.5 computation points, 6 analysis points, 2 clarity points, or 2 evidence points. Sum all four problems within each criterion. Count my final message only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
COMPUTATION UNITS: A correct count or decimal = 2; the right values and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing result or the wrong values or operation = 0. Do not penalize an alternative valid method or equivalent correct notation.
ANALYSIS UNITS: For P1-P3 separately, an interpretation that meets both parts named for that problem = 2; exactly one part = 1; neither = 0. For P4, BOTH the evidence-and-comparison explanation AND a coworker message that corrects the trio, explains the two kinds of claim, and names a limit = 2. If full P4 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate analysis = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, and a claim sorted by its topic instead of its kind is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not an analysis error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labeled evidence understandable to someone new to political science, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the final message with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
EVIDENCE UNITS: For each problem, checkable values, steps, and citations, with every quoted fragment matching the transcript = 2; a relevant but incomplete value, step, or citation, or a quotation that drifts from the transcript = 1; a result alone or no method = 0. A visible method stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my answer. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word answer is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied all four answers and their brief interpretations AND written my message to the coworker AND revised at least one calculation or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned score; it may end in .5 and must not be rounded to a whole number. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the score for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my calculations, citations, and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with all four answers, their brief interpretations, and your message to the coworker — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled sketch that maps the paragraph's premises, conclusion, and unstated premise with a short note; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 1 skills — sorting a claim as empirical or normative by its kind rather than its topic, taking an argument apart into its premises, conclusion, and unstated premise, matching the field's shorthand definitions to their thinkers, and comparing one text with another case — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same four problems, the four brief interpretations, and the message to the coworker. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and check every quotation against the National Archives transcript. Write a second draft and add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one calculation or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The calculations, reasoning, revision, and final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and do not accept any quotation from it until you have checked it against the National Archives transcript. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

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