Welcome to US Government

Welcome to American Government with Dr Brandle.  It’s so nice to meet you, and I’m so excited to learn with you this semester!  I am here to help you on your learning journey this semester, so if there’s something I can do to support your learning at any point, please email me, or hop into student hours. 

Make sure to explore our site. Immediately below on this page, click open the drawers to find how to succeed in this class and helpful information on technology resources, as well as my teaching philosophy. On the rest of the site, there are pages with

  • Actively participate in our weekly Tuesday and Thursday classes.  You will grade your participation in the exit ticket at the end of each class.
  • Check the Course Schedule for specific dates of each topic, then do the work listed for each topic on the Schedule of Readings and Work.
  • Read  our assigned reading every week (before our class meetings)
  • Do all of your own writing this semester- do not use AI!
  • Choose which assignments you want to do and do them throughout semester– they are all explained on the Assignments page.  You don’t have to do all of them, so choose what you like.  Everyone starts at 0 points- earn 73 points for a C, 97 for an A+, etc.  
    • For every assignment (except the exams), write a self-grading assessment– assigning yourself a number of points and explaining how your work fulfilled the requirements of the assignment for that amount of points. 
    • Try to have at least 50 points by the middle of the semester
  • Because life happens, there is flexibility built into the course- if you miss a due date just do a different assignment to earn the points. 
  • We are learning here together, so if I can be of any assistance, email me!

If you’re not sure what week we’re in or when something is due, check the Weekly Work page

If you’re not sure what you’re supposed to be doing, check the Weekly Work page.

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If you have other questions about the course, you can:

  • Ask in our email group (if you know the answer to a question from another student, please answer it!)
  • Use the google comment function to ask the question in a comment on the syllabus, assignment sheet, or other course document.
  • Come chat with me in Student Hours (Tuesdays at 1pm, or email me to make an appointment at a time that works for you)
  • Send me an email. I struggle with email, so this is not the fastest way to get a reply, even though I try to respond as quickly as I can. If you don’t have an answer within two days, please feel free to email me a follow up.

Our class email group and the google comment function are open to the whole class, so we can all learn from each others’ questions. Chances are, if you have a question, someone else does to, and you asking it in the group or as a comment will help them too. Similarly, if you see a question that you know the answer to, please answer it! My working hours are often different than the hours students do their work, so if you can help someone out faster than I can, it’s a good deed (and a great way to participate in the class!)

 You may find Zotero to be useful for reading and highlighting on our assigned digital texts. Zotero is free, syncs across all of your devices (phone, tablet, and computer), and is very easy to use.  Zotero will also generate citations so you can cite your sources, and you can use it directly in Google Docs or Microsoft Word.  I am always happy to help you get started with it if you like, and if you want to jump in yourself (it’s very easy!) there’s instructions in these slides.


Your work for this class will be much easier (and less frustrating) if you can do it on a computer, not a phone or tablet. You can reserve a computer and/or study room in which to do your online class work on campus (instructions are here). KCC also has loaner laptops available if you need one (instructions are here). If you are close to another CUNY campus, you can use the Eduroam wifi on your own device to do your work there (instructions are here). If you are having trouble getting access to sufficient technology (internet and/or hardware) to do your work, please let me know and we can work together to find workable solutions.

 I am a Professor of Political Science at Kingsborough Community College in the City University of New York as well as the Open Education Coordinator at KCC; I am also on the faculty of the Digital Humanities Program at the CUNY Graduate Center.  In Fall, 2021, I was a  Fulbright Scholar at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan.  If  you’re curious, you can find a lot more about me on my website.

color photo of a white woman wearing a grey knit hat in front of the Kamagawa.
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My approach to teaching has evolved a lot over the almost two decades I’ve been lucky enough to get to teach in universities. I have realized the importance of openness, care, flexibility, and choice in learning and teaching, and those are my guiding principles in course design, which you will see throughout this semester.  Every one of us brings different experiences, knowledges, and perspectives to this class, and by sharing those while we learn about political science together, we can create a rich learning environment for all of us.  We will be building critical life skills in this class- critical thinking, digital literacy, how to work with data and data visualizations, researching, writing, and supporting our arguments. These are essential ingredients to living your fullest life; they also happen to be useful in every imaginable career path.