Fall 2026

United States Congress

Covers principles, procedures, and problems of the US Congress legislative process.

offering recorded3–4 credits
Recorded instructors · Fall 2026 Eleanor Powell3.8/5Jess EsplinMatthew Kim

Summary

1 / 7

Historical reviews of Barry Burden: Exams are tough and require referring to lecture themes that are not present in the textbook.

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing and (POLI SCI 104, 184, or LEGAL ST/​POLI SCI 217)

POLISCI 311

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Fall 2026
Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 4.07/5 from 15 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2017: 3.52 GPA, 78.0% A/AB (n=50 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.74 GPA, 87.5% A/AB (n=48 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.77 GPA, 90.0% A/AB (n=100 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Historical reviews for Barry Burden describe concise, clear lectures starting with current events, though exams are tough and require referencing lecture themes not in the book. Eleanor Powell is the current instructor, but no specific reviews are provided for her teaching in this dataset.

BARRY CHRISTOPHER BURDEN is recorded teaching in Spring 2018, Fall 2021. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

ELEANOR POWELL is recorded teaching in Fall 2017, Spring 2025, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Fall 2026

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction102 / 1021
DIS 302Classroom Instruction17 / 170
DIS 303Classroom Instruction17 / 170
DIS 304Classroom Instruction17 / 171
DIS 305Classroom Instruction17 / 170
DIS 306Classroom Instruction17 / 170
DIS 307Classroom Instruction17 / 170
DIS 532Classroom Instruction0 / 00

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Historical reviews for Barry Burden describe clear lectures starting with current events, but note that exams are tough and require studying lecture themes not in the book.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.40 GPA, 77.1% A/AB (n=48 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.74 GPA, 87.5% A/AB (n=48 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.77 GPA, 90.0% A/AB (n=100 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Historical reviews of Barry Burden: Exams are tough and require referring to lecture themes that are not present in the textbook.

Historical reviews of Barry Burden: Lectures are concise and clear, starting with current events, and the instructor is described as nice and caring.

Topics

  • Legislative process

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Fall 2026.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1320 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
POLISCI 311 · Fall 2026

United States Congress

Recorded 2026-09-07
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20260907T155543-ce3781c4",
    "semester": "1272",
    "observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1272:778:015931",
    "course_id": "POLISCI 311",
    "course_uid": "course_937790c27de2158b8b75e9e7",
    "term_id": "1272",
    "source_course_id": "015931",
    "source_subject_id": "778",
    "title": "United States Congress",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 4,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring, Summer"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-09-07

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4",
  "model_revision": "1355db6a052410cfd62085d94b58866fd0f2c3c5",
  "task_version": "14",
  "output_id": "885a61555184887edb06ae90d85965193ce78e75c80f9baf61c783ab0634d2d5",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "e243353dcb7d79b7247ced91d69443ef4c2a6349",
  "observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00"
}