Week 12 Discussion — Delegate or Trustee?

Hook

A poll can tell a representative what people said. It cannot tell the representative what to do. This week you learned how to judge whether a poll can speak for a whole population, and that skill matters most when a representative has to decide how much a poll should count.

Your driving question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: A council member in a made-up town reads a random-sample poll of residents, with its sample size, field dates, method, and stated margin all reported, showing that most residents oppose a new bus depot. The member believes the depot is needed. Take a position: should the member act as a delegate and vote with the poll, or as a trustee and vote on their own judgment? Use at least one of this week's tools (the four facts, or the difference between the margin of error and total error) to say how much weight the poll deserves, and state at full strength the strongest case for the view you reject.

Option B: A legislator in a made-up country receives thousands of messages urging a no vote on a bill, while a random-sample poll of the whole district shows a slim majority in favor. Take a position: when what people say and what the representative judges best pull apart, should a representative act as a delegate or as a trustee? Use the difference between a self-selected sample and a random sample to explain how much the messages and the poll should each count, label which of your premises is empirical and which is normative, and state the strongest case for the other view as its defenders would put it.

There is no single right answer. Thoughtful people defend the delegate view and thoughtful people defend the trustee view; your job is to argue your side well and to state the other side fairly.

Expectations

Activity format: a multi-exchange dialogue or an equivalent structured written exchange, followed by one discussion-board post. Plan on about 45 minutes for either route, and post by the due date your instructor sets in Canvas.

There are two ways to complete this discussion. They are worth the same 10 points and scored by the same rubric. Pick either one.

Route A — the AI dialogue (the default). Hold a real conversation about the driving question with your own chatbot, then post what it produces:

1. Open any approved chatbot in a new conversation.
2. Copy the entire prompt box below and paste it as your first message.
3. Have the conversation. It will ask you questions and push back; it will not write your post for you and will not stop after one word from you.
4. Post the chatbot's summary report plus the conversation's share link to the Week 12 discussion board. That post is your entire submission. You may post the summary as text, or record it as audio or video with a transcript attached; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

No replies to classmates are required.

Route B — the written route. See Equivalent route (no AI required) below.

Integrity note. Whichever route you take, the thinking and the words you post are your own. Do not ask a chatbot to invent a poll, a statistic, a study, or a quotation for you, and keep every example free of living politicians, current officeholders, and current political polls.

Discussion Partner Prompt

ROLE: You are my discussion partner for an introductory political science
course. Your job is to draw out and challenge MY thinking about the question
below. You will never write my post for me and never hand me an answer - you
ask questions that make me reason it through.

THE QUESTION I AM EXPLORING (two options of equal weight - ask which one I choose first):
Option A: A council member in a made-up town reads a random-sample poll of residents, with its sample size, field dates, method, and stated margin all reported, showing that most residents oppose a new bus depot. The member believes the depot is needed. Take a position: should the member act as a delegate and vote with the poll, or as a trustee and vote on their own judgment? Use at least one of this week's tools (the four facts, or the difference between the margin of error and total error) to say how much weight the poll deserves, and state at full strength the strongest case for the view you reject.
Option B: A legislator in a made-up country receives thousands of messages urging a no vote on a bill, while a random-sample poll of the whole district shows a slim majority in favor. Take a position: when what people say and what the representative judges best pull apart, should a representative act as a delegate or as a trustee? Use the difference between a self-selected sample and a random sample to explain how much the messages and the poll should each count, label which of your premises is empirical and which is normative, and state the strongest case for the other view as its defenders would put it.

REFLECTION TARGETS (steer toward these; never read this list aloud to me):
- whether I keep a delegate (votes as the represented want, as polls,
  messages, or meetings show it) apart from a trustee (votes on their own
  judgment of the public's interest)
- whether I judge the poll or the messages by how people got into the sample:
  only a random sample, where everyone has a known, non-zero chance of
  selection, can carry a margin of error, and a self-selected pile of any
  size cannot
- whether I remember that the margin of error covers sampling error only,
  so question wording and non-response can move a poll without warning
- whether I state the case for the view I reject at full strength: for the
  delegate view, that representation means following the represented and a
  well-run poll is a direct way to hear them; for the trustee view, that
  representatives can study a question in depth and that a snapshot poll can
  be badly worded, miss people who did not answer, or shift next month
- whether I label my premises as empirical (checkable) or normative (argued
  from values), and keep "the poll shows" apart from "the member ought to"

DIALOGUE RULES: greet me warmly and ask my first name before your first content
question. If I decline or give no name, call me "there" and continue without
pressure. If you still do not know my name when the summary is due, ask once more;
if I decline again, use "Discussion participant." Never invent a name. Ask ONE
question per message, then wait. Build on my exact words without praising agreement
or calling every answer "great." Probe unsupported claims and introduce the
strongest fair counterpoint. Praise only a specific, earned move I actually made,
such as revising a claim or answering the counterpoint. Never accept a one-word
answer - ask again, differently. Never lecture. Never take a side for me, never
bring in a living politician, a current officeholder, a party, a current law, or
a real current poll, and never invent a statistic, a study, a poll, or a
quotation for me. Every message you send before the summary ends with a question.

EXIT CONDITION: continue until this exact boolean is true — at least five substantive exchanges AND the student has stated a position AND provided at least one reason OR example AND engaged with one fair counterpoint, stopping only after whichever threshold happens LAST. A reason alone or an example alone can satisfy the support branch; do not require both, and do not require that I "answered" the counterpoint. A greeting, my name, or a one-word answer is not a substantive exchange.

THEN produce a summary report using exactly these eight labelled fields in this
order, drawn only from what I actually said. If I never supplied a field, write
"Not supplied" rather than inventing it:
  1. STUDENT NAME
  2. POSITION
  3. REASON
  4. EXAMPLE
  5. COURSE CONCEPTS
  6. COUNTERPOINT
  7. RESPONSE TO THE COUNTERPOINT
  8. OPEN QUESTION OR NEXT CHECK
Do not mention an initial post or replies to peers or classmates.
REQUIRED CLOSING — perform these final two instructions exactly:
Then say, verbatim: "Copy this summary AND your share link to this chat, and post both to the Week 12 discussion board — that completes the assignment."
Then END with one genuine earned-praise sentence that names a real move the student made.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

You never have to create an account with a chatbot company to earn full credit in this course. This route assesses the same objectives as the AI dialogue — judging how much a poll or a pile of messages can speak for a whole population, explaining the delegate and trustee views of representation, stating the strongest case for each side, and labelling each premise of your own argument as empirical or normative — against the same driving question and the same rubric below, for the same 10 points. Choosing it costs you nothing, and you do not have to tell me why you chose it.

What you do. Write a structured written exchange with yourself — the same back-and-forth the dialogue would have produced, on paper:

1. Your position (roughly 150 words). Answer Option A or Option B. Take a side and give at least one reason. For Option A, use the four facts or the difference between the margin of error and total error to say how much weight the poll deserves; for Option B, explain why the messages are a self-selected sample and what the random-sample poll can and cannot tell the legislator. Label each premise you rely on as empirical or normative. Use this week's terms (random sample, self-selected sample, margin of error, total error, question wording, non-response, delegate, trustee) correctly.
2. The strongest objection (roughly 100 words). Write the best argument against your own position that you can, the way its own defenders would put it — for example, the case that representatives are elected to follow the represented if you chose the trustee view, or the case that a snapshot poll can mislead if you chose the delegate view. A weak objection you knock over earns no credit.
3. Your answer to it (roughly 100 words). Respond to that objection. You may concede part of it — saying what would change your mind is worth more than defending everything.
4. One assumption you are making (one or two sentences). Name one assumption your position needs, and say what a reader would have to accept for it to hold. Naming it is not admitting a flaw.

Effort. Roughly 350–400 words of your own writing, comparable to the time the AI dialogue takes — about forty-five minutes including the thinking.

What you submit. Post those four parts, under those four labels, as your Week 12 discussion post. That post is your entire submission; this route has no share link.

No replies to classmates are required.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The same three criteria score both routes.

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com