Instructors frequently worry that their students are simply parroting lines from the previous night’s reading, and not thinking critically about important topics. Nowhere is this more important than for students just learning the ins and outs of American government. So how do you get students to move beyond merely describing an author’s point of view? How do you get them to dig deeper, to actually uncover evidence and evaluate conclusions? The answer is to model critical thinking and close reading.

Barbour and Streb have created an effective and simple device that pushes students to actively engage with readings and tease out each writer’s argument. Through a series of probing questions, students are trained—systematically—to read through a selection and:

Consider the source,
Lay out the argument,
Uncover the evidence,
Evaluate the conclusion,
Sort out the political implications.

Each reading starts off with a substantial headnote giving background and context and ends with a series of CLUES questions that model for students what a critical thinker would ask about a particular reading. As they answer those questions, students will come to a better understanding of what they have read, and at the same time develop the lasting habits of critical thinking.

Around 80 brief selections are drawn from political science scholarship, newspapers and magazines, opinion journals, TV and radio programs, even stories from the Web. Students will be introduced to important publications that they may not otherwise encounter as they learn to relate to these writings in a meaningful way. While the currency and relevancy of most readings are sure to pique student interest, each chapter also includes a classic piece to help students understand the changes or constants in key political arguments over time.

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1. Introduction to American Politics

1.1. Voters’ Ed
John B. Anderson and Ray Martinez III, New York Times
April 6, 2006

1.2. Arizona Man Urges Lottery to Spur Voter Turnout
All Things Considered, NPR
May 24, 2006

1.3. Inaugural Address
John F. Kennedy
Delivered January 20, 1961

2. Political Culture

2.1. One Nation, Slightly Divisible
David Brooks, Atlantic Monthly
December 2001

2.2. But Seriously, Folks: Heard the One about Kinky Friedman Running for Governor?
Peter Carlson, Washington Post
July 18, 2006

2.3. Get Out, but Leave the Quesadilla
Michael Skube, Los Angeles Times
May 21, 2006

2.4. America Is a Class Act
The U.S. Regards Itself as the Ultimate Meritocracy, But Social Mobility Is as Feeble as Europe’s—and Declining
Gary Younge, Guardian
January 27, 2003

2.5. I Have a Dream
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Delivered August 28, 1963

3. Federalism and the Constitution

3.1. Bush, Hill Allies Seen Eroding States’ Rights
Jim Abrams (AP), Washington Times
January 4, 2004

3.2. State’s Rights – for the Right Ideas
E.J. Dionne, Washington Post
May 12, 2006

3.3. I Dissent! The Constitution Got Us Into This Mess
Sandford Levinson, Washington Post
December 17, 2000

3.4. A Republic, If We Can Keep It
Bruce Fein, Washington Times
July 30, 2002

3.5. Bush Challenges Hundreds of Laws: President Cites Powers of His Office
Charlie Savage, Boston Globe
April 30, 2006

3.6. Federalist No. 51
James Madison, The Federalist Papers

4. Civil Liberties

4.1. Marching as to War
Alan Cooperman, Washington Post
July 16, 2006

4.2. Gay Marriage Looms as the Battle of Our Times
Jane Lampman, Christian Science Monitor
June 1, 2006

4.3. At Guantanamo, Dying is Not Permitted
Adam Zagorin, Time Magazine online
June 30, 2006

4.4. Measuring Lost Freedom vs. Security in Dollars
Edmund L. Andrews, New York Times
March 11, 2003

4.5. Federalist No. 84
Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers

5. Civil Rights

5.1. People of Color Who Never Felt They Were Black
Racial Label Surprises Many Latino Immigrants
Darryl Fears, Washington Post
December 26, 2002

5.2. Black and White Proms
Patrick Rogers, Don Sider, and Lori Rozsa, People
May 19, 2003

5.3. Nine Nonsense
Carrie Lukas, National Review
April 6, 2006

5.4. Same-Sex Marriage: Hijacking the Civil Rights Legacy
Eugene F. Rivers, The Weekly Standard
June 1, 2006

5.5. Ain’t I a Woman?
Sojourner Truth, speaking at the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio
1851

6. Congress

6.1. Close Races Go the Way of Rotary Phones, Newt Gingrich
Ronald Brownstein, Los Angeles Times
April 15, 2002

6.2. Politics and Perks
Does Congress Really Want to Ban Privately Funded Travel?
Danielle Knight, U.S. News & World Report
March 13, 2006

6.3. If You Give a Congressman a Cookie
Norman Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann, New York Times
January 19, 2006

6.4. Another Record Year for Academic Pork
Jeffrey Brainard, The Chronicle of Higher Education
September 27, 2002

6.5. Declaration of Conscience
Margaret Chase Smith, Speech on the Senate Floor
June 1, 1950

7. The Presidency

7.1. The Ascent of a Woman
Anne Kornblut, New York Times
June 11, 2006

7.2. An Executive Order: Hiding Presidential Papers
San Francisco Chronicle editorial
November 11, 2001

7.3. The Real Agenda
New York Times editorial
July 16, 2006

7.4. Bush Moves by Refusing to Budge
Ronald Brownstein, Los Angeles Times
March 2, 2003

7.5. Excerpt from Speech to Congress
Abraham Lincoln
September 15, 1863

8. The Bureaucracy

8.1. In Artist’s Freeway Prank, Form Followed Function
Unauthorized Addition to Sign Went Unnoticed for Months. No Charges Planned.
Hugo Martin, Los Angeles Times
May 9, 2002

8.2. “Breathtaking” Waste and Fraud in Hurricane Aid
Eric Lipton, New York Times
June 27, 2006

8.3. Come One, Come All, Join the Terror Target List
Eric Lipton, New York Times
July 12, 2006

8.4. Burke Burning Over Frying in Trans-Fat
Gary Washburn, Chicago Tribune
July 2, 2006

8.5. Special Message to Congress Recommending the Establishment of a Department of National Defense
Harry S. Truman
December 19, 1945

9. The Courts

9.1. Can This Nomination Be Justified?
George Will, Washington Post
October 5, 2005

9.2. Obstruction of Justices
Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times Magazine
August 11, 2002

9.3. The Founding Fathers Save America’s Soul
Andrew Sullivan, The (London) Sunday Times
July 2, 2006

9.4. The Souter Factor
What Makes Tough Conservative Justices Go Soft?
Dahlia Lithwick, Slate
August 3, 2005

9.5. Federalist No. 78
Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers

10. Public Opinion

10.1. Rasmussen Update: A Lesson in Measurement Error
Mark Blumenthal, Mystery Pollster
July 25, 2006

10.2. Party On Dudes!
Ignorance Is the Curse of the Information Age
Matthew Robinson, The American Spectator
March/April 2002

10.3. Simply Put, the Public’s View Can’t Be Simply Put
Andrew Kohut, Washington Post
September 29, 2002

10.4. The Other War Room
President Bush Doesn’t Believe in Polling—Just Ask His Pollsters
Joshua Green, Washington Monthly
April 2002

10.5. Will the Polls Destroy Representative Democracy?
George Horace Gallup and Saul Forbes Rae, The Pulse of Democracy
1940

11. Political Parties

11.1. In Kansas, a Troubling Fissure for GOP
Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times
June 13, 2006

11.2. Lieberman’s Real Problem
Harold Myerson, Washington Post
July 12, 2006

11.3. Purple Mountains
Could the interior West—long seen as an archetypal red region—be turning blue?
The fate of the Republican Party may hinge on the answer
Ryan Sager, The Atlantic Monthly
July/August 2006

11.4. Introducing the Purple Party
Depressed about the Democrats? Revolted by Republicans? You’re not alone.
Here in New York (with its Republican mayor and Democratic voters), a third way is being plotted. Follow the purple-brick road.
Kurt Anderson, New York Magazine
April 24, 2006


11.5. Farwell Address
George Washington
September 17, 1796

12. Interest Groups

12.1. “My Life Is Shaped by the Border”
Student Activist Faces Fallout from Mideast Protest
Tanya Schevitz, San Francisco Chronicle
November 18, 2002

12.2. Money, Power, Respect
The Black Woman’s Vote Can Often Determine the Outcome of an Election, Yet When It Comes to Political Power, We Aren’t Getting Our Due: A New Political Action Committee Aims to Change That
Lonnae O’Neal Parker, Essence
February 2003

12.3. Not One Dime
A Radical Plan to Abramoff-Proof Politics
James Carville and Paul Begala, Washington Monthly
March 2006

12.4. Common Ground
United Steelworkers, Sierra club unite for good jobs, safety, clean enivironment
Alison Grant, Cleveland Plain Dealer
June 30, 2006

12.5. Federalist No. 10
James Madison, The Federalist Papers

13. Voting and Elections

13.1. Was the 2004 Election Stolen? No.
In Rolling Stone, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argues that new evidence proves that Bush stole the election. But the evidence he cites isn’t new and his argument is filled with distortions and blatant omissions.
Farhad Manjoo, Salon.com
June 3, 2006

13.2. Electoral College: Keep It or Dump It?
The New Coke Voting Scheme
Patrick McIlheran, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
June 16, 2006

13.3. Jimmy Carter Is Right
Amend the Immigration Bill to Require Voters to Show ID
John Fund, Wall Street Journal online
May 22, 2006

13.4. Campaign Bill to Kids: Take a Hike
Tony Mauro, USA Today
March 20, 2002

13.5. Concession Speech
Al Gore
December 13, 2000

14. The Media

14.1. America Mourns with Anderson Cooper
Murray Waas, The Huffington Post
January 4, 2006

14.2. Framing the Flag
Michael Scherer, Columbia Journalism Review
March-April 2002

14.3. The Real Media Bias: Profits
Margo Hammond, St. Petersburg Times
February 24, 2002

14.4. Why Brian Keeler Is a Netroots Hero
Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, Daily Kos
May 26, 2006

14.5. Mr. Hearst Answers High School Girl’s Query
William Randolph Hearst, San Francisco Chronicle
October 8, 1935

15. Domestic Policy

15.1. Zero Tolerance Lets a Student’s Future Hang on a Knife’s Edge
A Utensil Fell into Taylor Hess’s Pickup, Dropping Him into a Storm over School Policy
Barry Siegel, Los Angeles Times
August 11, 2002

15.2. Altared States
Bush Tries to Promote Marriage Through Welfare Reform
Kate O’Beirne, National Review
May 6, 2002

15.3. The Non-Taxpaying Class
Wall Street Journal editorial
November 20, 2002

15.4. Changing Social Security—Will Young People Go for It?
President Bush Is Proposing a Dramatic Change that Could Divide the Generations.
Barbara Basler, AARP Bulletin
March 2005

15.5. Fireside Chat
The Works Relief Program
Frankin Delano Roosevelt
April 28, 1935

16. Foreign Policy

16.1. The Quiet Power of Condi Rice
Born in “Bombingham,” the Enigmatic Advisor Has Become the “Warrior Princess”—Bush’s Secret white House Weapon
Evan Thomas, et al., Newsweek
December 16, 2002

16.2. Is America the “Good Guy”? Many Now Say, “No”
Peter Ford, Christian Science Monitor
September 11, 2002

16.3. The Kidnapping of Democracy
Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times
July 14, 2006

16.4. The Case for Missile Defense
The Fact That America Faces Novel Terrorist Threats Such as Hijacked Planes and Anthrax Spores Does Not Negate the Need for an Effective, Comprehensive Missile Defense
Steve Bonta, The New American
December 3, 2001

16.5. Speech Before the National Association of Evangelicals
Ronald Reagan, Orlando, Florida
March 8, 1983

"Barbour and Streb do an excellent job of compiling readings that are both relevant and interesting to students. Clued in to Politics is the best American Politics reader on the market."

“Clued in to Politics provides a broad spectrum of articles that creates a contemporary and historical context to issues that students of American government care about. The cases are especially helpful in generating interesting discussion and debate in a seminar setting, and they force students to think critically about a wide variety of concepts.”

“My students enjoyed the fun of these readings and the treatment of current events topics. The questions at the end of the chapters are great for discussion groups, and they work well for reaction paper assignments, too. The format of this book is great. Particularly, the order of the readings is ideal for an Introduction to American Politics class. The authors also balance the readings among liberal, conservative, and somewhere-in-between viewpoints, and they deliberately point out the slant of each reading. This is a great asset because generally I find students in an introductory class have a hard time picking up on the tone of political readings, and this teaches them to think more critically about the author’s point of view.”

“Barbour and Streb’s Clued in to Politics is a great book! It gets students thinking about and discussing what is happening in the world around them. My students like the articles, and they especially like the discussion questions at the end of the chapters. They force students to learn how think critically which helps with their exams, not only in my class but in others as well. Clued will be a required text for all my of classes, including those I teach online.”

“Clued in to Politics worked very well for my course, and the students responded enthusiastically to the readings. I was able to convey a great deal of information regarding the American political system via our in-class discussion of the text. Particularly for freshman and non-majors, the ‘hook’ of demonstrable relevance to personal and often familiar subjects was highly effective in capturing their interest.”

“This book was very easy to use and the students really enjoyed it. I did use the CLUES questions at the end of the chapter and found them invaluable in teaching students critical thinking skills.”

Christine Barbour teaches in the political science department and the Honors College at Indiana University, where she has become increasingly interested in how teachers of large classes can maximize what their students learn. At Indiana, Professor Barbour has been a Lilly Fellow, working on a project to increase student retention in large introductory courses, and a member of the Freshmen Learning Project, a university-wide effort to improve the first year undergraduate experience. She has served on the New York Times College Advisory Board, working with other educators on developing ways to integrate newspaper reading into the undergraduate curriculum. She has won several teaching awards at Indiana, but the two that mean the most to her were awarded by her students: the Indiana University Student Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Faculty (1995-6) and the Indiana University Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists Brown Derby Award (1997). She is currently working on a book about local politics, development and the fishing industry in Apalachicola, Florida.

Matthew J. Streb is assistant professor and director of undergraduate studies in the department of political science at Northern Illinois University. He specializes and teaches in areas of political parties, elections, polling and public opinion, and Congress, and regularly teaches sections of Introduction to American Government. Streb is the author, editor, or co-editor of seven books, including The New Electoral Politics of Race (2002), Law and Election Politics (2005), and Academic Freedom at the Dawn of a New Century (2006), and has published articles in journals, including Political Research Quarterly, Public Opinion Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, Election Law Journal, and Politics and Policy. His most recent research examines the role that political parties play in judicial elections. Streb received his PhD from Indiana University in 2000.

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