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How can we use Adam Smith in the classroom?

Visit here for an ever-evolving collection of original and curated material to help you and your students think more deeply about Adam Smith.

"The Wealth of Nations" Reading Guide

About Our Reading Guides

A guided exploration of Smith's famous text.

WN Reading Guide: Book I

Of the Causes of Improvement in the productive Powers of Labour, and of the Order according to which its Produce is naturally distributed among the different Ranks of the People

WN Reading Guide: Book II

Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment of Stock

WN Reading Guide: Book III

Of the different Progress of Opulence in different Nations

WN Reading Guide: Book IV

Of Systems of political Economy

WN Reading Guide: Book V

Of the Revenue of the Sovereign of Commonwealth

AdamSmithWorks Lesson Plans

Original, classroom-ready activities to use with your students TODAY.

#WealthOfTweets in the Classroom

This resource uses Twitter-length statements as a tool to better understand the complex text in Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations and to practice the process of distilling complex ideas into concise statements to improve communication and understanding.

Reading Smith Through the American Founding

This lesson plan pairs quotations and original text from Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations with important founding-era American documents to build students' understanding of Smith, the American Founders, and the time at which they were active.

Adam Smith and the U.S. Constitution


In this lesson, students read and discuss an essay by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Douglass North. They learn how Adam Smith’s ideas influenced the thinking of the Founders who wrote the U.S. Constitution. Next, the students work in groups to do an exercise that involves a more in-depth discussion of the economic features of the Constitution using new examples. 

Is it Smith? Facts and Myths about the Life of Adam Smith

Using a trivia game, students explore common myths and less well-known facts about Adam Smith. Background information, questions for discussion, and resources for further exploration are included.

Division of Labor and the Future of Work


The aim of this game is to "build" a production chain with sounds and actions. Each student provides a single step in the production chain. This lesson plan includes material appropriate for online teaching. 

Finding the Optimal Meal Plan

This lesson helps students to understand the importance of trade-offs and constraints in the context of planning what to eat for the week. A paired reading from Wealth of Nations helps learners practice reading complex texts and extension exercises apply the concept learned. This lesson is appropriate for at-home learning.

Division of Labor and the Wealth of Nations

Explore Adam Smith's pin factory, build mini sheds, and read Wealth of Nations to gain a better understanding of the division of labor.  Adjustments to this lesson plan to make it appropriate for online teaching are included.

Toilet Paper Wars!

This economics lesson is designed to be conversational and relies on materials in the home in order to accommodate parents thrust into an involuntary home learning environment as well as online educators. 

What Would Adam Smith Say?

About greed? About morality?

Help students apply Adam Smith's ideas to contemporary issues. This lesson plan transfers well to online teaching.

Adam Smith's Potato Chips

Compare the pin factory from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations to a modern potato chip factory described in a podcast. 

Explore with high school or introductory university students the way that the division of labor and changing market size have changed production over time.

On Whom Do You Depend?


How do we decide what to do for ourselves, and when to depend on others?

What Motivates Us?

Does Adam Smith contradict himself in his two major works???


In this lesson, the students test Smith’s ideas on sympathy by playing a famous game in economics and ethics known as the Ultimatum Game. 

An Evening with the Wise Guys

Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, and David Hume
Over an imaginary dinner, the three discuss their views regarding economics and the relationship between Great Britain and the American colonies.

The Invisible Hand, Spontaneous Order, and a Pizza

How is an economy organized?
And what can Adam Smith- and a pizza- teach us?

Ghost Story

Newly elected American President Elizabeth Montgomery faces an economic crisis.

The night before her State of the Union address, she is visited by the ghosts of Smith and John Maynard Keynes.

Trade for the Win!

This lesson allows students to experience the benefits of trade that Adam Smith wrote about in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. 

Students participate in a trade simulation that measures the variation in benefits received (utility) in a variety of rounds from no trade to free trade.  

To Protect or Not to Protect?

This lesson builds on the lesson Trade for the Win!

Dig deeper into the benefits of free trade in contrast to protected trade using two videos to contrast 18th-century trade with modern times. The extension to this lesson shows graphically how tariffs decrease the overall wealth/well-being of society.  

AdamSmithWorks Teaching Resources

Bellringers

COMING SOON!!!


“Bellringers” are classroom tools that help set the tone or introduce a topic in the classroom. Adam Smith Works bellringers use quotations from and activities based on the work of Adam Smith, allowing you to illustrate the long history of the ideas you will explore in your classroom by grounding them in great books.
AdamSmithWorks Bellringers come in two forms: 
Prompts are short quotations that you can discuss with your students to set the tone for your lesson. They cover topics from economics to history to moral philosophy.
Activities pair an Adam Smith quotation with a short activity to introduce or develop your topic in a classroom. 

Bellringers are presented in slides ready to pull and use in your classroom. 

Virtual Reading Groups

AdamSmithWorks is pleased to offer Virtual Reading Groups designed to gather individuals interested in serious and civil discussion.


Our VRGs focus on a particular Smithian topic and a common set of readings will form the basis for our discussions. Each group is facilitated by a professional moderator and is conducted via the Zoom online platform.

Participation is offered at no-cost, and there is no need to be an expert on the topic for discussion!  The only requirement is that participants be eager to read and engage in conversation.

Participants who successfully complete all sessions will receive an e-gift certificate from Amazon.com!

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Other Classroom Materials

Explore MORE Smith-related classroom resources- curated by the ASW team from across the Web.

"The Theory of Moral Sentiments" Reading Guide

About Our Reading Guides

The AdamSmithWorks reading guides use three types of questions and highlighting to help guide readers.

Why Teach "The Theory of Moral Sentiments?"

"Smith’s system can help adolescents build a moral narrative for their developing social lives."

TMS Reading Guide: Part I

Of the Propriety of Action

TMS Reading Guide: Part II

Of Merit and Demerit; or, of the Objects of Reward and Punishment

TMS Reading Guide: Part III

Of the Foundation of our Judgments concerning our own Sentiments and Conduct, and of the Sense of Duty

TMS Reading Guide: Part IV

Of the Effect of Utility upon the Sentiment of Approbation

TMS Reading Guide: Part V

Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon the Sentiments of Moral Approbation and Disapprobation

TMS Reading Guide: Part VI

Of the Character of Virtue

TMS Reading Guide: Part VII

Of Systems of Moral Philosophy

An Animal That Trades Video Series

A five-part short video series on the life and contemporary relevance of Adam Smith with complementary questions for discussion.