Fiscal Policy - Monetary Policy Mini Chapter with Readings, Notes, and Tests

This mini chapter gives an overview of Fiscal Policy and Monetary Policy. I use it to help prepare my Government students for the AIR Test (state test) that always asks questions about macroeconomics. The first section talks about Fiscal Policy and the Economic Cycle; the second section talks about the Federal Reserve and Monetary Policy. I created this because I could not for the life of me find anything that met my desires for teaching this information. I don’t have a ton of time in the year to cover this stuff, so I needed to have an overview of the concepts that didn’t take too long to get through.

Included in this package is the following:

- Two sections of readings (a 2-page reading on Fiscal Policy and the Economic Cycle and a 2.5 page reading on the Federal Reserve and Monetary Policy)

- Interactive PowerPoint Notes for both sections (including fill-in outlines for students)

- Short quizzes over the 2 readings

- Chapter Review Worksheet

- Brief Chapter Study Guide

- Chapter Test (15 matching, 15 multiple choice, 2 essays)

- Modified Chapter Test (fewer choices on matching & multiple choice questions)

- Google Form versions of the Tests with the Answer Keys built in

Each year our state test asks questions about the Fed and the economy, so I wanted to better prepare my students for it. I searched for HOURS online to find something that was suitable for my tastes. I wanted something that was comprehensive but that wasn’t overly complicated. Everything I found was either so simplified that it talked down to my students or it was so filled with jargon that it was more likely to confuse them than inform them. I gave up searching and put this together myself.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: The Fed has really changed how it handles monetary policy. The info in the second section of this reading is a little outdated (though it's still useful info to understand the banking system). I'm working on an update to this mini chapter to include the new changes, but in the mean time the St. Louis Federal Reserve website has useful info for educators. I plan to write a new section for this mini chapter soon to provide the same kind of "comprehensive but not complicated" overview to help prepare for the state test, but in the mean time this primer can be useful: https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/page1-econ/2020/08/03/the-feds-new-monetary-policy-tools_SE.pdf

This is flexible for you to implement as you see fit. I usually have them do a reading and take their own notes over it. Then I give an open-note quiz before we do the PowerPoint notes together. After we make it through both readings and notes, they're ready for the test.

This is the first time I’ve created my own chapter from scratch, so I was a little anxious about how it would be received by my students. They didn’t know I wrote it, and when we finished I asked what they thought of the readings. They gave it the following GLOWING reviews!

- “[awkward silence]”

- “It was fine.”

- “I liked that it was short.”

- “I guess it was better than when we had to read the Federalist Papers.”

You hear that, Alexander Hamilton? They said it was BETTER than the FEDERALIST PAPERS!!

If you like this chapter, you may also be interested in a couple of my other resources related to economics or preparing students for the AIR Test.

- A Practice AIR Test for Government (made with AIR test questions from Ohio)

- A Practice AIR Test for American History (made with AIR test questions from Ohio)

- A Review Game for supply and demand and featuring Zombies (note: for mature audiences only)

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KEYWORDS: Fiscal Policy; Monetary Policy; Federal Reserve System; The Fed; The Federal Budget; Taxes; Deficit Spending; National Debt; AIR Test; Economics; AIR Test Prep