Week 9 — Build a Court: Review, Independence, and the Majority

Assignment 8 of the term — design the courts of a made-up country, sort its court rules into power, conditions, and door, and explain to someone where American judicial review actually comes from.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, well-labelled design. 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 you learned what courts do, how judicial review differs from judicial independence and from jurisdiction, where Marbury v. Madison (1803) placed the American power, how diffuse and concentrated review differ, and why the counter-majoritarian debate has strong cases on both sides. Week 6 named a court setting an act aside as one of the checks and balances, Week 8 gave you the three-layer read, and Week 1 gave you the empirical/normative distinction; this assignment puts all three to work on a court system you design. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Political Analysis Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles.

The task

You will design the court system of a made-up country, then write and sort a set of rules about its courts. Treat every country as illustrative: none of them is real, and no real person, sitting judge, or current officeholder belongs in any of them.

Work these two problems, showing how you got each count:

1. Your made-up country's constitutional court has 21 judges, and a ruling that strikes down a statute needs two thirds of the judges: the number of judges times 2, divided by 3. How many judges must agree?
2. You write rules for your made-up country's courts: 2 rules about judicial review, 3 rules about judicial independence, and 1 rule about jurisdiction. How many rules do you write?

Beside each count, add the interpretation that makes it political science:

• Problem 1, your court. Choose diffuse review or concentrated review for your country and say who may bring a law before the court, including whether the court may rule in the abstract. Say which kinds of law your two-thirds rule protects from being struck down too easily, and why that threshold matters in your design. Then defend your choice with at least one premise labelled empirical and one labelled normative, state the strongest case for the other side of the counter-majoritarian debate as its defenders would put it (precommitment and minority protection, or the counter-majoritarian and juristocracy worries), and give your reply.
• Problem 2, your rules. Write the six rules. Each judicial independence rule must show one support: secure tenure, insulated selection, or compliance. Label every rule review, independence, or jurisdiction, and name the layer (design, practice, or verdict) of one rule and of one claim someone might make about it. Then match the three pinned cases this course uses, Marbury v. Madison (1803), McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), and Brown v. Board of Education (1954), to power, scope, and equality.

Explain it to a non-expert

A roommate tells you, "The Supreme Court can strike down laws because Article III says so in plain words." Write a 3–5 sentence message to that roommate that explains, in everyday words, where American judicial review comes from, uses Marbury v. Madison as the example, and names one limit of what the text of Article III can tell you on its own. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a volunteer at a community garden explaining to a newcomer why plots are assigned by lottery. Model answer: "We hand out plots by drawing names because more people want one than we have space for. The lottery is not about who has gardened longest; it gives every member the same chance. If you miss out this round, the waiting list goes first next time. The limit is that the lottery decides who gets a plot, not which plot, so the sunny corner still goes to whoever asks first."

Use that pattern for your message to the roommate, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft both counts, your court design, your six sorted rules, the case match, and your message to the roommate 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 how you got each count when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one design choice, rule label, 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, and it will not tell you which side of the counter-majoritarian debate is right.

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 this week's ideas: the judicial function, judicial review versus judicial independence versus jurisdiction, Marbury v. Madison, diffuse and concentrated review, and the counter-majoritarian debate. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a statistic, a study, a court case, a citation, or a quotation, never quote Bickel, never tell me which side of the debate to take, and never bring in a living politician, a sitting judge, a current officeholder, a party, a recent ruling, or a current law.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these two problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. My country is illustrative.
PROBLEM P1: Your made-up country's constitutional court has 21 judges, and a ruling that strikes down a statute needs two thirds of the judges: the number of judges times 2, divided by 3. How many judges must agree?
PROBLEM P2: You write rules for your made-up country's courts: 2 rules about judicial review, 3 rules about judicial independence, and 1 rule about jurisdiction. How many rules do you write?
After each count, I must interpret it: for P1, my court design (diffuse or concentrated review), who may bring a law before the court and whether it may rule in the abstract, what my two-thirds rule protects and why the threshold matters, a defense with at least one empirical and one normative premise labelled by kind, the strongest case for the other side of the counter-majoritarian debate stated charitably (precommitment and minority protection, or the counter-majoritarian and juristocracy worries), and my reply; for P2, six written rules, each labelled review, independence, or jurisdiction, each independence rule showing one support (secure tenure, insulated selection, or compliance), the layer named for one rule and for one claim about it, and the three pinned cases matched to power, scope, and equality. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a roommate who believes Article III names judicial review in plain words, explaining in everyday words where the power comes from, using Marbury v. Madison, and naming one limit. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.
Course facts to hold me to: judicial review is a court's power to set aside a law or an official act that conflicts with the constitution; judicial independence is secure tenure, insulated selection, and compliance; jurisdiction is which court may hear which case. Article III, Section 1 reads "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court" and never names judicial review. In Marbury v. Madison (1803) the Court held Marbury had a right and a remedy but that it could not issue the writ, because the statute granting original jurisdiction conflicted with Article III and was void; its holding includes "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." Marbury is about power, McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) about scope, and Brown v. Board of Education (1954) about equality. Diffuse review lets any court set aside an unconstitutional law in an ordinary case; concentrated review gives the power to one constitutional court, the Kelsen model, and neither is more democratic by fiat. Bickel (1962) named the counter-majoritarian difficulty.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: correct counts (20 points), political-science reasoning (40 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (20 points), and showing work so it can be checked (20 points). For each of P1 and P2, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 5 count points, 10 reasoning points, 5 clarity points, or 5 showing-work points. Sum both problems within each criterion. Count my message to the roommate only with P1.
COUNT UNITS: A correct count = 2; the right values and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing count or the wrong values or operation = 0. Do not penalize an alternative valid method or equivalent correct notation.
REASONING UNITS: For P1, all parts accurate (a named architecture with who may bring a law and whether abstract review applies, what the two-thirds rule protects, a defense with premises labelled by kind, a charitable statement of the other side of the counter-majoritarian debate, a reply, and the message to the roommate with one limit) = 2; at least one accurate substantive part = 1; none = 0. For P2, all parts accurate (six rules each labelled correctly, every independence rule showing a named support, layers named for one rule and one claim, and the three cases matched to power, scope, and equality) = 2; at least one accurate substantive part = 1; none = 0. Calling a support of independence judicial review, saying Article III names judicial review, or saying Marbury ordered the commission delivered earns no unit for that part. Naming a term alone does not earn a unit.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labelled 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. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SHOWING-WORK UNITS: For each problem, the starting values and the operation behind the count are visible = 2; a relevant but incomplete value or step = 1; a count 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 both counts with their interpretations AND written my message to the roommate AND revised at least one design choice, rule label, 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; never round it. 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 counts 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 both counts, your court design, your six sorted rules, the case match, and your message to the roommate — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled diagram of your court system 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 9 skills — keeping judicial review, judicial independence, and jurisdiction apart, telling diffuse from concentrated review, placing American judicial review in Marbury v. Madison rather than in Article III's text, and stating both sides of the counter-majoritarian debate charitably — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same two problems, your court design, the six sorted rules, the case match, and the message to the roommate. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and write a second draft. Add a 150–200 word revision memo that answers one of two reflection options of equal weight, your choice: (a) which design choice or rule label you changed, what prompted the change, and one question you still have; or (b) which rule you first labelled as judicial review when it described a condition of independence, why that was easy to do, and how you checked it. 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 court design, the counts, the rules, the revision, and the final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment, write your defense, or add evidence you did not produce, and never ask it to quote Bickel: his book is in copyright, and this course states his argument in words. Name no court case beyond the three this course pins, because chatbots invent cases and citations that sound real. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com