SAMPLE ASSIGNMENTS FOR INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM
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"REPORT CARD" TEMPLATE
(A guide to the document each student creates and turns in over each reading assignment to satisfy the writing assignment)

Give a letter grade score (either A, B, or C) across seven categories of evaluation (see rubric) with a short commentary explaining any B or C scores. Do not give all A grades.  Then, immediately under your scores, include a paragraph or two (250 words minimum - by doing enough of these, they will add up to eight pages of writing) providing grammatically correct commentary which fully explains and justifies your overall evaluation as well as demonstrates what you've learned or understood from reading the material.  A sample appears below, but please remember it's a sample and you should come up with your own version.

To: instructor
From: name of student (use full name as enrolled in course)
Assignment: be sure to name the lecture note you're evaluating (e.g., Asymmetric War lecture)

        1. B --- the writing used too many weasel words...
        2. A
        3. B --- a chart or diagram would have helped my understanding...
        4. A
        5. B --- there should have been more coverage of the current crisis in Iran...
        6. A
        7. C --- this lecture was useless to me as I don't really care about anything asymmetric... 
        Comments:  I give this lecture note a B+ overall because it's informative, even though some of the material is confusing and over my head.  It seems to go into theoretical or definitional matters too deeply.  The author convincingly says that certain things are important, like as one line reads "IPsec protocol can subsume VPN privileges" but I'm not all that interested in the techno-geek details as well as theoretical debates over the definition of asymmetric warfare.  I expected or would have preferred to learn about which countries were attacking us with computers and what can be done about it.  Don't get me wrong; the lecture note was useful in other ways. It helped me understand the full scope of the problem, such as the fact I learned that 50 countries have advanced cyberwarfare units.  It would have been helpful to have some images or pictures in some places to better understand some ideas.  My biggest critique, however, is that the reading was lengthy and a chore to read.  I think it also lacked a "voice" or strong author opinion in some places because they seemed to skirt away on some issues or sit on the fence.  One thing I've learned from this and other readings is that without considering the personal element, one can easily get bogged down in a bunch of relativism where anything goes theoretically.  I clicked on and followed some of the web links in the reading, and the one I found most interesting led to the Council on Foreign Relations.  I might also mention that the link to Korean Hacker Quarterly is broken and doesn't work.  I tried searching for where that website might have gone, but couldn't find anything.  In terms of suggested printed resources in the bibliography, I think the book entitled "Crusaders, Criminals, and Crazies" looks the most interesting to me for possibly read later on.  I think this lecture ought to be required reading for this course and others.  I certainly could have used it when I was working on a term paper in a class I had last semester....
    Another thing I learned from this lecture was...[second paragraph optional]       

This has been an illustration of how easy it is to do the writing assignments by demonstrating reading comprehension.