Policy memos
The midterm and final are in-person, proctored writing sessions held outside class time. You are handed a real news article you have not seen and write a policy memo on the spot — no internet, no generative AI. The drills below build that skill week by week.
Midterm memo exam · 25%
~90 minutes, up to 2 pages. Scheduled as an evening block near the end of Week 7 / start of Week 8. Date, time, and room: TBD.
Final memo exam · 35%
~3 hours, up to 4 pages, during the university's Final Exams Week per the registrar's assigned slot. Date, time, and room: TBD. The rubric weights improvement on midterm feedback.
What the rubric asks for
- BLUF — the bottom line up front. The recommendation is legible on one read.
- Issue and background — what is at stake, briefly, for a reader who has the article but not the literature.
- Evidence — data used to support a recommendation, not to decorate it: say what the number implies for action.
- Options and tradeoffs — name the competing positions instead of picking a side silently.
- Recommendation — specific, actionable, addressed to a named audience.
Training arc
| Week | Drill | Skill being built |
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Drills are short (10–20 minutes), completion-graded as part of participation, and usually run on that week's own USAID case reading.