Malte Frøslee Ibsen

Political Science

A Training Module for Learning Essay-Writing Skills in Political Theory

Abstract

This TLHE project develops a training module for learning essay-writing skills in political theory. Students in political science with little prior experience in political theory often struggle with the particular format and structure of the political theory essay, and this model is intended as a tool for students to help them acquire the requisite knowledge of the form and structure and turn that knowledge into the particular skill-set that one must master in order to write a first rate essay in political theory. The module consists of (1) a guidance note on how to write an essay in political theory and (2) a so-called “argument-building carousel”, which mobilizes and combines active-learning and collaborative pedagogy with OBL tools to train essay-writing skills in a fun and cooperative classroom setting. The first part of the project consists of the guidance note. The second part of the project consists of a sketch of the argument-building carousel. Finally, the third part of the project offers a theoretically and empirically motivated account of how students might be expected to benefit from the implantation of the training module in practice, before accounting for the recent actual implementation and testing of the training module in a master’s level course on democratic theory, and the results of student evaluations of the training module are presented and analyzed.

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