Essential question: How should a household compare renting and buying without assuming either choice is always superior?
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 renting and buying over five years using total cash cost, equity, maintenance, mobility, and sensitivity to price and rate changes.
Analyze a sample lease and loan estimate for fees, obligations, and risk.
Instructional aim: Define the Week 11 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 compares total occupancy cost and time horizon and tests whether emergency reserves survive the decision.
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 “lease”? | C | Lease means a contract granting temporary use of property under stated terms. |
| 2 | Which definition best matches “security deposit”? | C | Security deposit means money held to cover specified damage or obligations, subject to law. |
| 3 | Which definition best matches “mortgage”? | A | Mortgage means a loan secured by real property. |
| 4 | Which definition best matches “escrow”? | D | Escrow means funds held by a third party for taxes, insurance, or transaction conditions. |
| 5 | Which definition best matches “equity”? | B | Equity means property value minus debt secured by the property. |
| 6 | Which definition best matches “closing cost”? | D | Closing cost means fees and charges required to complete a real-estate purchase and financing. |
| 7 | Which statement is most consistent with the evidence and reasoning developed in Week 11? | B | Housing cost includes utilities, transportation, insurance, fees, maintenance, taxes, deposits, and transaction costs. |
| 8 | Which statement is most consistent with the evidence and reasoning developed in Week 11? | C | Buying can build equity but creates concentration, maintenance, price, interest-rate, and mobility risk. |
| 9 | Which statement is most consistent with the evidence and reasoning developed in Week 11? | D | Lease and mortgage decisions require contract review, inspection, realistic cash flow, and contingency planning. |
| 10 | Which action best demonstrates mastery of the Week 11 inquiry? | A | A student compares total occupancy cost and time horizon and tests whether emergency reserves survive the decision. |
What housing costs are commonly hidden by advertisements that show only rent or mortgage principal and interest?
5 points: clear claim, accurate disciplinary reasoning, two specific pieces of evidence, meaningful qualification or counterargument, and complete explanation.