The Story Behind the Stock Market Game

This class participated in a stock market game where they virtually “bought and sold” stock and traced their earnings over a period of a couple of weeks. After the game the students decided they needed a way to share the valuable information they had learned about the stock market and investing. The whole class came up with a variety of ways to share the information and they finally settled on developing a brochure that would give people information in an easily accessible form.

The students did a great deal of research on the stock market. They kept daily stock market logs, wrote to companies directly asking for information, had a stock broker come to talk to their class, and also used their own experience with the stock market game.

Once the students decided that they wanted to produce a brochure, they had to decide on the layout and format. They looked at a wide variety of professional brochures and decided which format they liked the best given the planned content for their own brochure. When they decided on a “best,” they then used this as their model.

The students developed questions as an organizing structure for their brochure. While they were developing their questions, the students continued to test them against the way the stock market works. This way, they were able to make sure that their guide questions worked as a predictor of success on the stock market.

In addition to the brochure, the students made a presentation for the stock broker who came to visit their class. They also published a newsletter discussing various stocks and how they were currently doing on the stock market. This newsletter included explanations of why the various stocks were rising or falling on the market.

The written work produced as part of Applied Learning projects commonly contains some errors. Documentation of these projects includes notes, journal entries and plans that students produced as working documents for their personal use. These kinds of documents were not prepared with the expectation of eventual publication and they have not been revised for inclusion in this book.

It is expected that finished work produced as part of an Applied Learning project will contain virtually error free writing.

This project illustrates a standard-setting performance for the following parts of the standards:
a	Communication: Make an oral presentation.
b	Communication: Compose correspondence.
c	Communication: Publish information.
b	Information: Use information technology.
a	Working With Others: Work with others to complete a task.

What the work shows
a Communication Tools and Techniques: The student makes an oral presentation of project plans or findings to an appropriate audience; that is, the student:

The students had been in contact with a stock broker in the course of their project. At the end of the project, they invited him to come and visit their class so that they could show him what they had learned and show him their brochure for helping people decide which stocks to buy.

This is the finished draft of the script for the presentation. The students worked in small groups to write segments of the script. They then ran through the presentation in its entirety and the whole group was able to critique and edit the speech adding anything that was needed. The organization of the presentation reflects this level of preparation.

The students established criteria for judging the success of their presentation. In this evaluation, the students focused on the content of the presentation rather than presentation skills, e.g., speaking loudly and clearly. They focused on their purpose of giving the stock broker information about their project and their brochure. The criteria cited here can be clearly linked to the report of information criteria from the New York City Language Arts Performance Standards. For example, the following criteria are referred to in this evaluation: includes appropriate facts and details, develops a controlling idea, appropriate organizing structure (“Has a beginning…, middle… and an end….”), a range of strategies, e.g., “humor,” “not boring,” and provides a sense of closure.

The students included “proper grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.” Apart from grammar, this type of editing was not necessary for an oral presentation but this shows that the students were transferring and applying the editing process from their writing. While this is an example of over-generalization, the students’ effort to transfer skills is noteworthy.

Included here are some of the finished evaluations of the trial run prior to the stock broker’s visit. The students voted on who should do the actual presentations based on these evaluations.

b Communication Tools and Techniques: The student composes and sends correspondence, such as thank-you letters and memoranda providing information; that is, the student:

The students wrote a variety of letters for a variety of purposes. Each was formatted appropriately for the purpose of the correspondence.

The letter to the principal had three purposes: inviting the principal to come to the launching of the stock brochure, asking permission to invite a stock broker to come talk to the class, and asking permission for the stock broker to use the phone while he was at the school. The letter, written in a formal style appropriate for these purposes, presents the information and states the requests in a clear manner. The students included all the contextual information to help the principal make the decision, e.g., explaining the purpose of the brochure and explaining why the stock broker needs to use the phone on his visit.
The typographic error detracts from the finished quality of the letter but does not interfere with meaning.

The second letter is to the stock broker asking him to visit the class so that they could show him their brochure. Again, the style is appropriate for the purpose and the request is stated clearly.

Both letters avoid irrelevant details and are well-organized. The few grammatical errors do not detract from an overall demonstration of their understanding of the rules and conventions of the English language.

c Communication Tools and Techniques: The student writes and formats information for short publications, such as brochures or posters; that is, the student:

The students planned, wrote, designed, and formatted a brochure to share the information they learned about the stock market and investing. The students decided on a brochure as the best method for providing clear, concise information that would be “user-friendly” as a result of a class meeting.

The information is organized into an appropriate form for use in a publication of this sort. The students went through a series of trials with their questions to make sure that they conveyed the right information. Formatting the information as questions provides the information to the reader quickly and in a functional manner.

The students examined a variety of brochures, rated them on various criteria, and voted on the one they liked best to serve as their model. They tested out the brochure in advance of publishing it by applying the questions to a given stock and making sure that the advice given was sound. The students tested the validity of the brochure again after the brochure was published: Was the advice still sound?

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