Idaho Social Studies 6-9.WH.3.5

Social StudiesGrades 6–9Economics

The Standard

Identify influential economic thinkers and the impact of their philosophies.

Idaho Content Standards: K-12 Social Studies

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students connect Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes to their main economic ideas. They explain how those ideas influenced policies, movements, or ways of running an economy.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student can match a short policy description to a thinker and explain the clue they used. They can give one effect, such as Marx's influence on communist movements.
Common Misconceptions: Students may think Smith wanted no government rules at all. They may confuse Marx's ideas with everything communist governments did, or think Keynes called for more government spending in every situation.
How to Assess It: Exit ticket: Match Smith, Marx, and Keynes to competition, worker ownership, and government spending during a recession. Choose one match and name a policy or movement it influenced.

Lesson moves

Cut and sort nine cards into thinker, idea, impact trios: Smith, competition, market policies; Marx, worker ownership, communist movements; Keynes, recession spending, stimulus policies.
Discuss how Smith and Marx might disagree about who should own a factory, then cite one idea from each.
Read three policy cards aloud: remove trade barriers, transfer factories to workers, fund jobs during a slump; students name each thinker.
Use a local road repair project to ask whether Keynes would support funding it during a recession and why.

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