Credit Cards & Consumers

Learning Standards Covered:

• • Standard 2: Integrated Learning: “Students will demonstrate how academic knowledge and skills are applied in the workplace and other settings.” The knowledge of credit will be extremely valuable in their lives, combined with the ability to analyze different documents.

Objectives:

• • Students will understand the different forms of advertisement that credit card companies use in targeting consumers.

  • Students will understand key vocabulary and important aspects of credit advertisements.

Materials:

• • Mail from homework assignment

  • Credit card commercials (online)

  • Computer w/projector

  • Credit card contracts

  • Homework assignment questionnaire

Procedure:

• • Hook: Have students watch a quick video on credit to draw them in (“All Flash, No Cash” Trailer). (3 minutes)

  • Silent “Chalk Talk” with key vocabulary words or questions for the lesson, such as “How do credit card companies reach consumers?” or “What do I know about credit?” The teacher can guide the silent discussion through adding questions or other words on the board during the chalk talk. (7 minutes)

  • Discuss, as a class, what appeared on the board during the silent discussion and the video. Create a set of goals of what students want to get out of the lesson combined with what I think will be important for students to know. (8 minutes)

  • Brainstorm with students what sort of information is important that consumers should know before signing up for a credit card while writing responses on board. (3 minutes)

  • Students will get into groups and sort through their household’s week’s worth of mail that they have brought in (be prepared to provide additional mail). Have each student write down important characteristics of advertising from each piece financially related mail compared to the accompanying policies in fine print. (i.e. “What aspects of the mail draw consumers in?” “What sort of information is present in the fine print?”) (8 minutes)

  • Show a few credit card commercials from the internet, asking students guiding questions to explain how the commercial made them feel (good, funny, happy, etc.) and what sort of techniques were used to attract consumers, in addition to looking for similarities between commercials and the mail. Have students take notes of what sort of important policy information was actually present in the commercial, and whether it was legible. Provide time for the partners from earlier to discuss and compare their results. (8 minutes)

  • Bring students back as a class and have them discuss what they found from the mail and commercials. Compare what information was present to what was important to know (from the beginning of the class). If time permits, show the students different advertising websites to further reinforce credit card and loan advertisement techniques.

Closure: Assign homework of interviewing parents. Remind students of what makes up a good question (from a previous lesson) and brainstorm a few questions.

Suggested Homework: Interview parents or guardians concerning how credit directly affects their life and how credit card companies approach their parents. This will be in preparation for the next day’s lesson on the importance of a good credit score. Assign a few questions for the interview and allow students to make up their own from what they learned in class.

Evaluation: The majority of assessment will come from the participation of students as they analyze the materials presented to them, in addition to their notes on my guiding worksheet. I will collect the worksheets at the end of class to determine what students were able to successfully understand the lesson.