Spring 2027

The American Constitution : Powers and Structures of Government

Historical examination of American constitutional thinking on powers and structures of government from the founding era to the present.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 8

Past student reviews · Howard Schweber

Lectures were dense, requiring about seven pages of fast handwritten notes per session. Take-home exams were graded fairly and took about four hours to complete.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Examine the historical development of American constitutionalism.

  • Develop a broad knowledge of the historical constitutionalism and modern and historical constitutional debates.

  • Explore how legal rules define constitutional rights and liberties, and how different ways of thinking about those rules prevailed during different historical periods.

  • Recognize that in different periods, different approaches of interpreting and applying the Constitution have appeared or have been dominant, and these approaches often cut across doctrinal subject areas.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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

Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing and POLI SCI 104

POLISCI 411

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

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

DONALD ALEXANDER DOWNS is recorded teaching in Fall 2006. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

HOWARD SCHWEBER is recorded teaching in Fall 2014, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022. 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

Spring 2027

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SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

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

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Howard Schweber

Howard Schweber taught this course relying on his own knowledge rather than PowerPoint slides. Students described the lectures as dense, noting that attending class was essential for success.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2021: 3.58 GPA, 87.8% A/AB (n=49 letter grades); Fall 2022: 3.75 GPA, 89.2% A/AB (n=93 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.70 GPA, 84.8% A/AB (n=46 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Howard Schweber

Lectures were dense, requiring about seven pages of fast handwritten notes per session. Take-home exams were graded fairly and took about four hours to complete.

Past student reviews · Howard Schweber

Students found the exams challenging, noting that consistent attendance and reading led to high grades. One student appreciated that lectures kept them thinking about the content for hours after class.

Topics

  • Separation of powers, executive war powers, congressional powers, judicial review, and federalism
  • Development of constitutional law, constitutional politics, and American political development

Skills

  • Examine the historical development of American constitutionalism
  • Recognize different approaches to interpreting and applying the Constitution across historical periods

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 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

1286 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

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
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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 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
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  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "4ef479a0a32991fe46de68d27c8c201ac0e909a4a677415cbabab9126459be04",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}