Financial Literacy

Assigned Readings:
“Teach Your Children the Building Blocks of Finance,” by Sherie Holder and Kenneth Meeks (p. 35)

Choose one of these two essay assignments on financial literacy.
OPTION ONE

Tell an incident related to your learning of financial literacy. In previous semesters, students have written about such experiences as entering foster care for a short time because of parents not being able to take care of the costs of raising them and going to a private school because of parents’ drive to get a superior education for them. Remember that a narrative is told as a series of actions or events told in time order. You need to give detailed elaboration on the important parts of the incident. The purpose of the essay is to have the reader participate in the experience as the writer sees it from memory and his/her present viewpoint. In this essay, there is no standard thesis statement, but the conclusion of the narrative makes clear the meaning of the experience to the writer. This assignment will work well if you have an interesting personal experience related to your or your parents’ finances and you would find it rewarding to reflect on it. In the paper, refer to the Holder and Meeks’ article “Teach Your Children the Building Blocks of Finance” on p. 35.

Narration is discussed in your textbook on pages 205-6, 251-2, 79.

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OPTION TWO

Growing up, what personal experiences did you have with the financial topics discussed in Holder and Meeks’ article? These topics include saving, allowance, entrepreneurship, jobs, budgeting, family meetings and investing. Select two or three of them to focus on. Describe the experience you had. Include specific details. How does your experience of each topic relate to the ideas of Holder and Meeks in that particular section? What is similar and different? Did you become financially literate by experiencing them? Explain why.

In Option Two you need to have a thesis. Think about your overall learning of financial literacy. What role did these specific activities play in your gaining financial understanding? For example, what values did your family have about money and were the activities you were asked or encouraged to do reflect those values? Both allowance and jobs might have played a big role in your becoming more knowledgeable about finances. If so, that is a generalization you can make about your early money experiences (a thesis) and your description of how you experienced each of them would support that overall point. In the essay, you must refer at least once to the article written by Holder and Meeks.

Writing a strong thesis is discussed in your textbook on pages 246-255 ,86-89.
I choose options one