The Political Science Genre

Describe the features, functions, and student activity of a textbook for a single field, such as American History. Write a paper analyzing the genre.

Political Science books are usually very factual, full of history, definitions, and cases. American Constitutional Law is the textbook I have to read for my Civil Liberties class. The textbook is definitely a part of the Political Science genre, according to Charles Bazerman, since it functions to provide history, the structure of the government, and some critical question, such as how U.S. Supreme Court Justices affect these two issues. Maps, graphs, and definitions appear frequently throughout the textbook to better define the features of the book. There are no pictures, which also typical of the Political Science genre. Student activites require students to evaluate the learned history and analyze why or how it happened.

This textbook serves its purpose of the Political Science genre: to inform and encourage critical thinking. The activities encourage me to do more research or question my professor about a give topic.