A May American Economic Review Papers Seminar and an Analytic Project for Advanced Undergraduates

Abstract

The author describes two learning activities for teaching economics at the advanced undergraduate level: a May American Economic Review (AER) papers seminar and an analytic project. Both activities help students learn to "do economics." The May AER papers seminar promotes in-depth synthesis and interpretation on the basis of printed session papers of the American Economics Association's annual meetings. The seminar relies on four structured components: a session-choice process, an advance question and answer exercise, a seminar discourse strategy, and a critical impact paper. The analytic project requires independent formulation and solution of a problem. Components include a procedure to write the project report, an oral class presentation, a listener-response exercise, and feedback in two phases.

Keywords:

• advanced undergraduate instruction
• senior seminar
• student research project
• writing assignments