Financial Literacy & English/Language Arts

As a former English teacher of high school seniors, if I had a classroom now, I would use the book "The Big Short" which tells the story of the financial crisis, including those who saw the crash coming and got very rich from it.The book's greatest success was helping the American public understand the complex forces that combined to create the largest economic collapse since the Great Depression.The book is a great introduction for students about the power of the markets to both create and destroy wealth. Lessons for this unit would involve financial literacy of what happened and how and why in connection with the book. Students would also be asked to identify the mistakes made and how we can avoid them in the future.