International Law and Institutions (PS321) introduces Duke undergraduates to the domain of international law. In this course, I focus on the political conditions that affect the formation, content, and efficacy of international law, the latter defined as the capacity of international law to shape and constrain the behavior of states. Since I began teaching this class in 2009, I’ve also emphasized research and writing as a core element—the class receives both an R and a W.
LAMP provided support in the summer so that I could redevelop PS321. My main goal in redeveloping the class was to extend and enhance the writing elements of the course. In particular, I wanted to build into the course a writing element that promoted student engagement with real world policy problems and to allow students to experience public engagement in foreign policy/international law. To meet this goal, I shifted in the first instance from requiring a research paper (15-20 pages, double-spaced) to requiring a book review to be roughly 10 pages in length.
My second goal was to improve the grading procedures I employ for the students. To this end, Kaitlyn Webster, the class TA, and I met with staff at the Assessment Center and almost completely redesigned the grading rubric for the course paper. We also designed from scratch a rubric for the new writing element for the class—namely, two op-eds, each 500 words in length. In addition, we adapted for PS321 a grading rubric for class participation that another TA had developed for my class on international progress (PS234).
In addition, and more ambitiously, as noted above, with good guidance from LAMP leaders I developed the requirement that each student write two op-eds. The first would be completed toward the beginning of the semester and in the context of a workshop on op-eds led by Keith Lawrence, the key Duke person responsible for helping Duke faculty write and publish op-eds. The second op-ed would be written later in the semester and was supposed to reflect their work on the book review.
The new grading rubrics were, I think, quite successful. They marked an improvement over earlier grading templates (see the attached syllabus from the spring of 2015). However, I found that it was necessary to adjust both the book-review requirement and especially the op-ed requirement once the semester began and I encountered real-world students.
The op-ed writing workshop with Mr. Lawrence took place on Wednesday, September 16. This was at the conclusion of the third week of classes and after two full weeks of lectures/discussions on the international law of going to war. It had been my expectation that the students would have attained a firm-enough grasp on that subject to write about some current international legal issue, such as whether the UN should impose a safe zone in Syria. However, it became clear no later than the class on Monday, September 14 that they were not ready to do a law-centered op-ed. I therefore changed the assignment: the students could write about an international-law topic, or they could write about any other subject so long as they would, in writing the op-ed, put forward a clear point of view on some subject of broad interest.
Several of the students were able to engage an international-law topic. However, others went in very different directions. For example, one student-athlete wrote about what the boycott associated with HB2 meant from her viewpoint in terms of championship games being moved out of North Carolina; another wrote about her concerns about personal-appearance rules (length of hair limits) she had experienced just a few years earlier while a student at a high school in Bangkok. I also found, not surprisingly in retrospect, that by the second half of the semester and the second op-ed, there was a higher incidence of international-law op-eds.
I also encountered unexpected problems with the requirement that each student write a book review. The TA and I thought it would help the students if we provided a list of seven prominent books by political scientists on international law and institutions. However, I found that several of the students had a great deal of difficulty in selecting a book and, more importantly, in locating a point of critical engagement with political science books on this subject. The main constraint was methodological: many of the works use fairly advanced statistical techniques, and many students found the statistical models a bit opaque or otherwise difficult to engage. Hence, I adjusted the requirement to include not just books but one of three key advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ): those on the U.S. support of the contra rebels in Nicaragua, on the legality of nuclear weapons, and on the building by Israel of a security wall in the West Bank. The requirement was to assess whether the ICJ had reached its conclusions (for example, that the United States had violated numerous customary and statutory international laws in supporting the contras) in a defensible manner. Several students did very good analyses of these decisions.
I will be teaching PS321 again this coming fall. As I think about how I will fine-tune the class for the coming semester, I reflect on three key lessons that I gained from my experiences with PS321 last fall, and from discussing those experiences with LAMP colleagues throughout the 2016-17 academic year. First, progress in teaching is possible but is likely to come in small steps. I’ve tried numerous grading systems over the years for this course. Looking back, I see that if the current rubrics represent improvement it is because in part they are grounded on, and build upon, earlier templates. Having said that, I would strongly urge colleagues to consult with the staff of the assessment center: they are very good especially at helping frame the goals we seek to attain in our grading.
Second, in devising any graded element for a course, including and perhaps especially those involving writing, it’s critical to think about where the students are in terms of their knowledge of whatever subject is being covered in the course. Students were not ready to take a stand, especially in print, on some element of international law, after only two or three weeks of engagement with that subject. My premise to the contrary for the first op-ed was simply incorrect.
Third, don’t be afraid to adjust a new design element for a course if it is not working, even after the semester has begun. On the first op-ed: several not regarding international law were actually very engaging—that by the student on hair-style restrictions was able to have her essay, when revised, published on the op-ed section of the Bangkok Post!
Looking ahead, I am not sure I will do op-eds again in PS321. I go back and forth on that. But I don’t think I’ll again require book reviews. Instead, I may return to the requirement that the students produce research papers. This is a topic for thought this summer!
IMAGE CREDIT: Photo by Frankie Guarini on Unsplash.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph M. Grieco is Professor of Political Science who emphasizes in his teaching the production by students of original research and the sharpening of their verbal skills. As a returning LAMP Bacca fellow in 2016-2017, he will in the fall of 2016 add to his undergraduate class in international law a new LAMP-based requirement that students write two op-eds that they will submit to outside news media, such as hometown newspapers.
