General honors (GH) classes

Previously Offered general honors (GH) classes

General Honors (GH) courses are the heart of the University Honors Program curriculum and feature small class sizes, dedicated faculty members, interdisciplinary perspectives, active learning and an exciting array of topics. These classes can be accessed by searching under University Honors in the catalog. The following is an example of a General Honors (GH) course that has been offered in the past. This course may or may not be offered again.

GH101: The 2012 Presidential Campaign

Course Description

Presidential campaigns offer opportunities to focus with precision on a particular practice of political communication.  This course aims to create an engaging and intense learning experience based primarily on paying close, critical attention to the 2012 presidential campaign.  The critical attention we will apply is not the typical position of the electorate during a campaign.  Our interaction with the campaign will be informed by a current text examining American presidential campaign communication.  We will learn theories of communication s they help us understand campaign acts.  We will read and discuss writings about presidential campaign communication, our primary work will involve “reading”-- describing, explicating, and interrogating the texts produced by the campaign itself.  Students will organize into teams that choose a venue, medium, or site through which to watch the campaign.  Each team will maintain a robust blog in which members discuss what they have seen of the campaign each week.  Class time will be spent with students’ blog entries as we seek to deepen our understanding of the how, what, and why of the 2012 presidential campaign.  As a class, we will also participate in co-curricular programs sponsored by ISU’s American Democracy Project, including national debate watch.  Paying really close attention to the practice of democracy in America as evidenced in a presidential campaign will be a great way to spend part of the fall semester.

INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Darlene Hantzis