Very few students that take economic classes will go on to be "economists." Everyone will practice political economy, however, thus the importance getting students to understand some very basic economic principles. Robert H. Frank has a good article in the American Economic Review called "The Economic Naturalist: Teaching Introductory Students How to Speak Economics." In the article, Frank puts forth the proposition that a few basic principles do all the heavy lifting in economics and that introductory classes should focus on conveying those basic principles over and over through active learning. He then briefly discusses his "economic naturalist" writing assignment, which is somewhat similar to the "armchair economist" approach of Steven Landsburg put into a class writing assignment. Frank further outlines this approach in a Journal of Economic Education article called "The Economic Naturalist Writing Assignment."

I agree that some basic principles do all of the heavy lifting in introductory classes. That is one reason why I like Gwartney, Stroup, Sobel, and Macpherson text because of their "eight guideposts to economic thinking" that continually get reinforced in the text.

Integrating the basic principles approach with active learning has been a focus of my research. My article "Homer Economicus: Using The Simpsons to Teach Economics" (email me at johall-at-mail-dot-wvu-dot-edu for a copy) which appeared in Journal of Private Enterprise in 2005 was my first attempt at doing so. Bob Lawson and I are working on a paper called "From ABBA to Zeppelin, Led: Using Music to Teach Economics" that we will be presenting at APEE in two weeks.