When Doug Peterson and I wrote Back to the Futures, we aimed at a general audience — farmers, grain traders, market analysts, and curious readers. We didn’t really think of it as a classroom book. Of course, I wanted the book to help educate readers about commodity markets, but most of all, I wanted it to be funny. That is why it is filled with crazy stories, including chasing cows, and a smirking cow on the cover.
Then, much to my surprise, Maria Boerngen at Illinois State adopted it for her AGR 324 (Commodity Futures & Options) class, built a “Book Club” model around it. The student response was the kind of thing every instructor dreams about: positive reception across all reflections and exams, self-reported preparation rising through the semester, and one student writing that it was the only book they had read cover to cover in their entire academic career. Maria and I wrote an article about her experience that was published in Applied Economics Teaching Resources.
I recently heard from Nicole Klein at South Dakota State University, who teaches AgEc 354: Agricultural Marketing and Prices and also uses Back to the Futures as a required text. So, the list of course adoptions is growing.
For anyone teaching commodity markets, ag marketing, financial markets, or risk management, there are five free instructor resources on my website:
- A teacher adoption kit
- A chapter-by-chapter topic guide
- Discussion questions for all 21 chapters
- A quick-reference index of chapters by topic
- The AETR article on the Book Club approach.
If you’re looking for something that will appeal to students and liven up your classroom discussions, give it a look. And you might just make a cow somewhere happy.
Laurence J. Norton Chair of Agricultural Marketing
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign