Instructions

Over the rest of the semester we'll be reading a popular economics book--the sort of book meant to convey some key economic ideas to the interested lay person. The good news is these books are fun and cheap! The bad news is that these books aren't organized in a way that lines up nicely with our textbook. But that will probably work to our advantage as far as learning is concerned!

As we've already discussed, we're reading The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford. Be aware: the Harford book is The Undercover Economist and its first chapter is about coffee--he has a very similarly named book with a first chapter that isn't about coffee. Make sure your copy of the book starts with coffee.

While we're reading this book the weekly discussion won't track so neatly with the concepts we're dealing with in videos, homework, and quizzes. As always, feel free to reach out and ask questions.

Each week you'll do a summary/response of another chapter or two of our book. As usual, this is an open ended assignment. I don't want to set specific requirements because I want to give you space to be curious and exploratory. As usual, the questions I'm asking when grading is "did this student a) demonstrate that they did the reading? b) demonstrate that they took time to think about the reading? and c) demonstrate a willingness to go above the bare minimum?"

Feel free to dig into any issue related to the week's reading if there's something that seems interesting and/or important. What I want to see is some demonstration that you're thinking about what you're reading and trying to connect it to your understanding of the world.

Assigned reading: Introduction and Chapter 1 of Undercover Economist

It might be helpful for these assignments to ask yourself questions like:

• What lesson from the reading was the important for people to understand?
• What lesson from this reading most changes your perspective on life?
• Are there any major lessons from the reading you disagree with?

And some miscellaneous notes:

• Take advantage of this opportunity to work on your writing. Potential employers will judge you on your written communication. Consider pasting your assignment into this website (http://hemingwayapp.com/) to help you edit your writing
• Use a scrap of paper as a bookmark and jot down notes as you read.