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Leadership - Using the Criteria to Evaluate
Today, as a class we agreed on 5 criteria to great leaders. We discussed different examples and how best to define these criteria. These steps correspond to the process writers engage in when preparing an essay. First, writers must understand the issue as individuals. Second, they must consider how their individual definitions and values may differ from the world around them, specifically the audience they will target in their essays. Third, they must articulate in writing their understanding, providing explanations and examples to illustrate what they mean to their audience. Fourth, they must use the criteria in an objective way so that their audience feels it can trust them. These are all crucial elements to good writing.
Your group’s next step in understanding the writing process is to apply the criteria we’ve discussed and agreed on in class. To underscore how people can take the same criteria, apply it to the same objects, and still end up with widely diverse results, we are going to compare and evaluate two leaders, Senators McCain and Obama, this country’s Republican and Democratic nominees for president. This assignment is an informal group essay which you will work on next week and bring copies to the class for group evaluation on Friday, September 19th.
Essay components:
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Length & Format: 1-2 pages, single-spaced, typed, in Times New Roman 12-point font (or something similar in size and looks). Use the appropriate heading for the class, but for name put all members of your group.
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Introduction: a short overview of the group’s definition of a leader, why it’s important that we are able to recognize and define who and what a great leader is, and the connection of leadership to the office of the president.
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Thesis: a sentence at the end of the introduction that states which of the two candidates your group decided best met the class’s criteria for great leadership.
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Body paragraph 1: Provide explanation and evidence to show how Senator 1 (group decides which candidate) rates on all 5 criteria. Be sure to give specific examples to prove or disprove your case.
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Body paragraph 2: Provide explanation and evidence to show how Senator 2 (group decides which candidate) rates on all 5 criteria. Be sure to give specific examples to prove or disprove your case.
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Conclusion: Present your group’s ultimate decision about which of these candidates is the greater leader. It is possible that both meet all of the criteria, but one is more outstanding than the other. It is possible that neither score a 100% on all qualities but that your group feels some criteria are more important than others for president, so one candidate is more outstanding in these areas. It could be that your group decides that both are, in the end, quite equal and would both be great leaders. That’s part of the evaluative process.
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Documentation: For all evidence you provide, have a copy or printout attached to MY copy of your presentation, and at the end of your essay, type a list that gives the following information for each source: author, title, date, and internet address if applicable. Since you do not have a lot of time to do this, I am not expecting a formal works cited page, but I do want to see enough information on the essay so students can track it down if they want. You must also indicate in your essay which source you are referring to when providing evidence. Do use parenthetical notation for this that includes in parenthesis the author’s last name or a short title of the piece if no author exists. This will help us go to the right source at the end of the document.
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Audience: Your audience is your class, the people who agreed on this list of criteria. Consider what commonalities we have as a group: students, Oklahomans, age, gender, marital status, political preference, etc. These will be important factors in making your case to your audience.
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Copies: Bring enough copies for all people on the day we are presenting your findings – 25 should be plenty.
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Group dynamics: For this weekend, assign different people to gather evidence about Obama and McCain – no one person should gather evidence for both, and you should have at least 2 people covering each senator. A good place to get info is on Ebsco and Newsbank (to log on to Ebsco at home, use BLIB as the userid and PASSWORD as the password), at each candidate’s web site (mainly for biographical info since that will be more objective): Obama & McCain; and http://www.factcheck.org – a non-partisan organization that checks what politicians say in public and provides the facts, showing how honest the person has been. Of course, there are many other sources, but you must use legitimate, academically credible info.
When you come to class Monday and Wednesday, you must decide as a group who best fits and what evidence to use. This will not necessarily be easy – it’s not supposed to be. This will underscore how difficult it is, even with criteria, to come to consensus. You might have to compromise. Someone will be the group typist. Though you do need to spell check and proofread, I am not holding you to the same editing standards that I will formal essays. This is informal and quick, so I know you will not have time to do the kind of editing you must for your own essays. The main purpose here is to compare all of our findings.
Because of the quick turnaround, your group will need to work very efficiently on Monday and Wednesday. Come to class with all your information on Monday. The best way to do that is to look for specific examples of the candidates credentials for each criterion. So if we use “likes baseball” as a criterion for great leadership, what evidence can you find that Senator 1 likes or does not like baseball?
Note: As long as you are working efficiently in class, if Friday is not enough time to pull the essay together, I will extend the presentation date to Monday, September 20th. We’ll be flexible.
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