Objective 1: Students will demonstrate fundamental knowledge regarding and appropriate use of macroeconomic indicators, for instance, GDP, inflation, and unemployment. It includes being able to:
Describe macroeconomic indicators, their components, and methods of measurement
Explain and examine how those indicators could change
Regarding the first objective in my course, the writing assignment will ask students to write a summary of recent changes in key indicators and potential reasons for those changes. I will provide students with free access data link. After this assignment, students will become familiar with where they will find data and look for details such as components of indicators to explore the reasons for changes in them. So, students learn how those indicators are calculated. This assignment requires students to read and think about answers. While writing about macroeconomic indicators, students will understand the meaning of indicators, such as what kind of information those indicators provide us, and determine potential sources of changes in them.
I might ask students to write small writing activities often used in undergraduate economics courses. For intermediate macroeconomics, students can write a report (in what form) to the general audience (for whom) who wants to know about economic performance in a country and a rough prediction on key economic indicators soon (about what). The purpose is to inform (for what purpose) people about current situations in an economy.
The purpose of this writing activity in my course is to have students use a simple model in real-world situations. Thus, the audience for student writing is people who do not know economics but have common sense about the economy. Students need to use general language with simple economic terms, but they should show some intuition about economics.
To produce a report, students could integrate writing, reading, and presentation in the following way: First, students read textbooks, class notes, and policy briefings to become familiar with using key terms and concepts. Then, they collect the related data under an instruction to prepare a presentation. They give a presentation to their classmates. After having comments from other students and an instructor, they should have enough ideas to write a good report.
Objective 2: Students should be able to assess fiscal and monetary policy to counter business cycle swings using simple macroeconomic models. It includes being able to:
Differentiate phases of the business cycle and explain how the self-correcting mechanism works
Predict potential monetary and fiscal policy during the corresponding phases of the business cycle
Predict and assess results and outcomes of the potential economic policies and self-correcting mechanisms
According to this learning objective, the writing assignment helps students learn about the business cycle, self-correcting mechanisms, and policies. They read notes, textbooks, and briefings from policymakers, watch some videos, and discuss with group members. In this assignment, students first need to collect data from available sources and define phases of business cycles. Then, they will be asked to analyze different scenarios of fiscal and monetary policies in a recession period due to a negative supply shock. To answer this, students will read textbooks and find correct answers for each scenario. Specifically, students should read for specific purposes and think about differences in fiscal and monetary policies and self-correcting mechanisms.
A high-stake writing assignment helps students learn in-depth, for example, apply their knowledge and concepts to real-life situations and integrate their knowledge on different topics.