Essential question: How can a consumer compare credit offers by total cost rather than monthly payment or promotional language?
Instructional caution: Distinguish factual definitions, legal holdings, economic relationships, value judgments, and policy preferences. Do not grade students for political viewpoint; grade evidence, accuracy, reasoning, citation, and disciplinary method.
Compare three card disclosures using APR, fees, grace period, reward value, promotional end date, penalty terms, and total repayment.
Calculate repayment time and interest under minimum payment, fixed payment, and full-statement payment scenarios.
Instructional aim: Define the Week 7 problem, establish the relevant institutions or economic relationships, and construct an initial answer to the essential question.
Evidence of learning: Identify one distinction that prevents a common oversimplification of this topic.
Support: Provide a vocabulary preview, chunked text, text-to-speech, and claim/evidence sentence frames.
Extension: Identify a competing theoretical interpretation and describe what evidence could distinguish it.
Instructional aim: Evaluate a primary record, legal case, policy document, contract, or institutional source for authority, evidence, context, and limitation.
Evidence of learning: State one claim the focal record supports and one claim it cannot establish alone.
Support: Define specialized language, provide a structured annotation guide, and allow oral rehearsal before writing.
Extension: Locate a source from a different institutional or social position and explain how it confirms, complicates, or contradicts the first.
Instructional aim: Interpret a quantitative model, institutional process, financial calculation, or policy tradeoff without confusing description and causation.
Evidence of learning: Explain which conclusion remains valid after the changed assumption and which conclusion does not.
Support: Provide labeled examples, formulas or process steps, and a partially completed model.
Extension: Perform a sensitivity analysis or compare an alternative policy/institutional design.
Instructional aim: Construct and defend a precise claim using disciplinary evidence, a counterclaim, and a proportionate conclusion.
Evidence of learning: Explain why the counterclaim deserves a response rather than dismissal.
Support: Use claim-evidence-reasoning frames and permit an audio or oral draft before the final written product.
Extension: Rewrite the recommendation for an audience with a different role, jurisdiction, time horizon, or risk tolerance.
Instructional aim: Demonstrate weekly mastery, correct misconceptions, and transfer the central concept to a new case.
Evidence of learning: Apply the week’s reasoning to this mastery action: A student calculates total repayment under the actual APR and fees and does not select credit based only on the monthly minimum or rewards.
Support: Allow extended time, reduced-distraction setting, read-aloud where appropriate, and repeated attempts after documented correction.
Extension: Write one high-quality examination question and an answer key explaining why each distractor is wrong.
Each principal assignment is worth 30 points: 8 accuracy, 8 evidence or calculation, 6 reasoning, 4 counterargument/limitation, and 4 clarity/citation. Use the course rubrics for expanded descriptors.
| # | Question | Answer | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Which definition best matches “annual percentage rate”? | C | Annual percentage rate means a standardized annual rate expressing the cost of credit under disclosure rules. |
| 2 | Which definition best matches “grace period”? | A | Grace period means a period in which eligible purchases may avoid interest when statement terms are satisfied. |
| 3 | Which definition best matches “minimum payment”? | C | Minimum payment means the smallest payment required by the due date, often resulting in long repayment and high interest. |
| 4 | Which definition best matches “revolving credit”? | D | Revolving credit means credit that can be borrowed, repaid, and borrowed again up to a limit. |
| 5 | Which definition best matches “late fee”? | B | Late fee means a charge for failing to make the required payment by the deadline. |
| 6 | Which definition best matches “promotional rate”? | C | Promotional rate means a temporary interest rate that changes under stated terms. |
| 7 | Which statement is most consistent with the evidence and reasoning developed in Week 7? | B | Monthly payment alone does not reveal total borrowing cost. |
| 8 | Which statement is most consistent with the evidence and reasoning developed in Week 7? | A | Paying only the minimum can extend debt for years and greatly increase interest. |
| 9 | Which statement is most consistent with the evidence and reasoning developed in Week 7? | D | Promotional rates, balance transfers, rewards, fees, and penalty terms must be evaluated together. |
| 10 | Which action best demonstrates mastery of the Week 7 inquiry? | B | A student calculates total repayment under the actual APR and fees and does not select credit based only on the monthly minimum or rewards. |
Should credit-card issuers be allowed to market rewards without showing a personalized likely interest cost?
5 points: clear claim, accurate disciplinary reasoning, two specific pieces of evidence, meaningful qualification or counterargument, and complete explanation.