Home | How It Works | Stats Login | Register         Case: Summative Ownership Tests are a nightmare to many students, specifically diverse learners. I would like to give my students in literature more liberty to apply applications learned inside the classroom at home or across content. Students struggle with applying the literary analysis of short stories. I would like them to apply what they have learned to other materials than just reading a story. What are some ways teachers can incorporate analyzing plot structure other than reading? Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) Depending on the subject matter being taught, I can certainly see how plot structure used in literature can be used to examine business cycles in macroeconomics. Using Aristotle's Unified Plot and a modified Freytag pyramid, moving in a linear path, and following a chain of cause and effect, a basic triangle-shaped plot structure is created. This helps to lead toward a solution for the conflict or crisis. The unified plot starts with a beginning, moving towards a rising action, followed by the climax, after which there is falling action and finally resolution. Similarly, a business cycle is fluctuations in business activity. This causes a nation's gross domestic product, employment, inflation and aggregate demand to either rise or fall over a period of time creating an almost perfect analogy for analyzing plot summaries. For example, the exposition which is the situation before the action starts is the first stage of a business cycle known as full employment of a nation's resources. However, when circumstances in an economy begin to change and business owners and individuals experience a slowing of economic growth and output, the nation's economy may begin to slow down or contract. This maybe caused be negative future expectations or access to credit and borrowing may begin to tighten. The plot component in literature is known as the rising action which defines the conflicts and crisis leading up to the climax. The climax is the most intense part of the plot and also marks a turning point in the story. This stage in the business cycle is regarded as the most devastating point for business activity. The unemployment rate reaches its highest point, there is no economic growth, businesses fail and there is mass unemployment. However, this stage marks a turning point in favor of the economy as a whole. The final stages in the business cycle are the expansion and recovery phases. During these stages business production begins to rise and workers are once again hired. Business activity creates jobs lowering the unemployment rate and creating new demand in the economy. These stages equate to the plot components of falling action and the resolution, just as the economy has resolved a crisis in business activity in the short run. In literature, without conflict between competing forces there is no plot. Without conflict between competing economic forces which lead to periods of expansion and followed by periods of contraction, economic activity would be small and so would our nation's standard of living.