Natalie's reading from the text addressed the country's need for a stable uniform currency and banking system. We discussed that the US government did not start printing paper money until the Civil War,and reviewed Natalie's study guide answers on the circumstances leading to the enactment of the National Bank Act in 1863. As Natalie's next lengthy essay topic will examine the history of US currency and the country's abandonment of the gold standard in 1971, I placed on the whiteboard some introductory material, and explained that our printed money today is not backed by anything of inherent value other than the government's fiat declaring that it has value and acts as legal tender for all debts.I explained how the gold standard allowed holders of paper currency to exchange paper money for gold until the 1930s. I then distributed some supplementary material on the history of currency from Colonial times to the abandonment of the gold standard as well as a study guide outline on the supplemental material. Natalie began to review the supplemental material and will work thorough the study guide over the next sessions. I will review her study guide answers as she completes them , and then we will in class generate an outline for her essay. For homework, I assigned a short review quiz on economic cycles and economic indicators that is open book.