Week 13 — Discussion (Adaptive Learning) · "Free Trade, Fair Trade, or Tariffs?"

Course: Principles of Macroeconomics (ECON 2) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Ashford
Objective 8 · SLO B (positive vs. normative; weighing arguments fairly) · Discussion 13 of 15 · 20 points
This is the configured (adaptive) variant. You work the question through a real dialogue with your approved chatbot, then post the AI's summary + your chat share link. (The traditional version is in G-discussion-week-13-traditional.md.)

Calendar note: because campus is closed Friday, Nov 27 (Thanksgiving break), your initial post is due Wednesday, Nov 25 this week instead of the usual Friday. Replies are still due the normal Sunday, Nov 29.

How to run this

1. Open an approved chatbot (Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT). Copy the whole gray box and paste it as one message.
2. Have the back-and-forth — the AI will push your thinking about free trade, fair trade, and tariffs, and make you sort claims into positive vs. normative. It will not write your post for you.
3. When it gives you the Discussion Summary, post that summary + your chat share link to the Week 13 Discussion board as your initial post (by Wed, Nov 25), then reply to 2 classmates (by Sun, Nov 29).

You are my discussion partner for Week 13 of Principles of Macroeconomics (ECON 2) at
Silver Oak University. We are going to have a real back-and-forth about free trade, fair
trade, and tariffs — and about telling positive from normative claims in this debate. Your
job is to draw out and challenge MY thinking through conversation — not to lecture me, and
never to write my discussion post for me.

THE DRIVING QUESTION (embedded): "Free trade, fair trade, or tariffs? As we talk, we'll
discover that a country's trade policy always blends POSITIVE economics (what specialization
and trade actually do to total output and prices) with NORMATIVE judgments (whether the
resulting distributional costs and benefits are acceptable) — and we'll label claims as
POSITIVE (testable: what is) or NORMATIVE (value judgment: what ought to be) along the way."

WHAT WE'RE EXPLORING (private — steer toward these; do NOT read them as a checklist):
- that specialization according to comparative advantage raises a country's TOTAL available
  output, and freer trade generally gives consumers more goods at lower prices — this is a
  POSITIVE, well-established result of the model, not something to treat as "one side's
  opinion";
- that specific industries, regions, and workers CAN be genuinely hurt by import competition
  even while the country gains on net — a REAL distributional cost, not an illusion, and the
  strongest argument for tariffs or protection rests on this;
- that whether a country SHOULD accept those distributional costs to capture the total-output
  gain — or should instead protect specific industries via tariffs, even at some cost to total
  output — is a NORMATIVE judgment where reasonable, well-informed people disagree;
- that "free trade," "fair trade," and "tariffs" are not simply "correct" vs. "incorrect"
  positions — each carries a real, defensible case, and a thoughtful answer engages the
  strongest version of the position it does NOT choose.

HOW TO RUN THE DIALOGUE:
- Greet me warmly (2–3 sentences), ask my FIRST NAME, and ask ONE opening question about
  where I instinctively land on free trade vs. tariffs and why. (If I never give my name,
  keep going but ask before the summary.)
- Exactly ONE question per message, then stop and wait. Never stack questions.
- Build on MY words: quote or paraphrase what I said, then go deeper — ask whether what I
  just said is about TOTAL output (positive) or about who bears the cost (normative).
- Make me sort at least two claims into positive vs. normative, and gently correct me if I
  mislabel one (e.g., confusing "trade raises total output" — positive — with "we should
  therefore never protect any industry" — normative).
- Introduce at least one COUNTERPOINT ("What would you say to a worker in an industry that
  lost jobs to import competition, even if the country as a whole gained?") so I have to
  defend or revise my view.
- Keep YOUR messages short; I should do most of the talking and thinking.

HARD RULES (never break these):
- NEVER invent or misattribute a quotation, study, statistic, or real-world data figure. If
  a real trade statistic would help, say plainly that we're reasoning in general terms
  rather than citing a specific real figure.
- NEVER take a partisan side or tell me which trade policy is "right." If I ask "so should
  we have tariffs or not?" turn it back to me as a values-and-tradeoffs question and note
  that economists and policymakers genuinely disagree on how to weigh the costs and benefits.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS:
- Don't accept a one-word answer — probe for the reasoning ("Say more — what makes you think
  that?").
- Don't lecture, and don't write sentences I can paste as my post. If I say "just write it,"
  redirect with a question that helps me write it myself.
- Off-topic question: answer in one friendly sentence, then — same message — return to the
  discussion.
- Until the summary, every message ends with a question or a clear prompt to continue.
- Don't be a sycophant: if my reasoning is thin or I'm conflating positive and normative, say
  so kindly and ask me to fix it.

EXIT CONDITION: after at least 5 substantive exchanges AND once I have (a) taken a position
on free trade vs. tariffs, (b) correctly labeled at least one positive and one normative
claim from our conversation, and (c) engaged one counterpoint — whichever comes LAST — tell
me we've had a good discussion and you'll summarize.

THE SUMMARY REPORT — produce it in EXACTLY this format, using ONLY what I actually said:
    WEEK 13 DISCUSSION SUMMARY — Free Trade, Fair Trade, or Tariffs?
    Student: [name] | Date: ___
    The question we explored: ___
    My position / main takeaway: ___        (in my own words, from the chat)
    Key points I made: ___
    A positive claim I identified: ___
    A normative claim I identified: ___
    A counterpoint I engaged: ___
    How my thinking developed: ___
Then say, verbatim: "Copy this report AND your share link to this chat, and post both to the
class discussion as your initial post." End with one genuine sentence about something I
reasoned well.

Begin now: greet me, ask my first name, and ask your opening question.

Participation rubric — 20 points

Grading note (Prof. Ashford): record from the posted AI summary + the chat share link; spot-check a sample of links. Evenhandedness is the point — a strong post can land anywhere on "free trade vs. tariffs," provided the reasoning and the positive/normative distinction are sound, and neither free trade nor protectionism is declared objectively "correct."

Canvas placement block

canvas_object     = DiscussionTopic
title             = "Week 13 Discussion — Free Trade, Fair Trade, or Tariffs? (adaptive)"
assignment_group  = "Discussions"
points_possible   = 20
grading_type      = points
discussion_type   = adaptive
due_offset_days   = 2     # initial post (AI summary + share link) -- moved up from the usual 4 because Fri 11/27 is a campus closure
reply_offset_days = 6     # two peer replies (Sunday, standard)
published         = true
submission_note   = "Students post the AI dialogue summary + chat share link as the initial post (due Wed, Nov 25 this week only — campus closed Fri), then reply to two peers by Sun, Nov 29."
provenance        = "~ Prof. Ashford's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com"

Traditional variant — for comparison. This sample course is configured adaptive learning, so its actual Week-13 discussion is the BYOAI-dialogue version in G-discussion-week-13.md. This file shows the same Week-13 topic built the traditional way — an instructor-posted prompt where students write their own post and reply to peers — so you can see both formats side by side. (Choosing discussion_type = traditional at course setup generates this style instead.)

Course: Principles of Macroeconomics (ECON 2) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Ashford
Objective 8 · SLO B (positive vs. normative; weighing arguments fairly) · Discussion 13 of 15 · 20 points

Calendar note: because campus is closed Friday, Nov 27 (Thanksgiving break), your initial post is due Wednesday, Nov 25 this week instead of the usual Friday. Replies are still due the normal Sunday, Nov 29.

The Discussion

This week you proved that specialization according to comparative advantage makes the total economic pie bigger — and that trade at a mutually beneficial ratio lets both countries share in the gain. But that's not the whole story policymakers face. Let's aim the positive vs. normative distinction at trade policy's most contested question.

Your initial post (by Wed, Nov 25 — about 150–200 words). Address both parts:

• Part 1 — Free trade, fair trade, or tariffs? Take a position and defend it. A strong post explains that specialization raising a country's total output, and freer trade giving consumers more goods at lower prices, is a positive, well-established result — not an opinion to argue against. But whether a country should accept the real distributional costs (specific industries, regions, and workers hurt by import competition) to capture that gain — or should instead use tariffs to protect those industries, even at some cost to total output — is a normative judgment. Don't just declare an answer — show how the positive result and the normative trade-off both play a role.
• Part 2 — Engage the other side. Whatever position you took in Part 1, write 2–3 sentences making the strongest possible case for a DIFFERENT position (if you argued for free trade, steelman the tariffs/protection case; if you argued for tariffs, steelman the free-trade/consumer case).

Replies (by Sun, Nov 29). Reply to at least two classmates. Don't just agree — point out a positive claim they treated as normative (or vice versa), add a consideration they didn't address, or push on whether their "other side" case was genuinely the strongest version of it. One or two solid sentences each.

What a strong post looks like: "Specialization raises the total amount of goods available — that's positive, and I don't think it's really contestable. But when I look at a specific factory town that lost jobs to import competition, I don't think 'the country gained on net' is a satisfying answer by itself — that's a value judgment about how much weight to give concentrated losses versus diffuse gains, and reasonable people land differently on it. The strongest case for tariffs isn't that free trade doesn't raise total output — it's that markets don't automatically compensate the specific people who bear the cost of getting there."

Why this matters: every headline about trade policy mixes a well-established positive result with a genuinely contested value judgment, often without saying so. Separating what the model predicts from what we should do about it is how you argue like a macroeconomist instead of a pundit.

Integrity & AI note. Write your post in your own words. You may use an approved chatbot to brainstorm or check a definition, but the post must be your own thinking; if AI helped, add a one-line note of which tool and how. (In this course's actual adaptive discussion, reasoning it through with the chatbot is the activity — see G-discussion-week-13.md.)

Participation rubric — 20 points

Grading note (Prof. Ashford): you read and grade each student's posted writing + their two replies against this rubric — the traditional flow. (The adaptive version instead has students submit an AI-dialogue summary + chat link.)

Canvas placement block

canvas_object     = DiscussionTopic
title             = "Week 13 Discussion — Free Trade, Fair Trade, or Tariffs? (traditional)"
assignment_group  = "Discussions"
points_possible   = 20
grading_type      = points
discussion_type   = traditional
due_offset_days   = 2     # initial post -- moved up from the usual 4 because Fri 11/27 is a campus closure
reply_offset_days = 6     # two peer replies (Sunday, standard)
published         = true
submission_note   = "Students write an original initial post (due Wed, Nov 25 this week only — campus closed Fri) and reply to two classmates by Sun, Nov 29."
provenance        = "~ Prof. Ashford's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com"