Teaching Business in Dallas in Grades 9–12

Quick answer: Start with customer needs and the four Ps, then move to records and journal entries, and finish with the legal forms a business can take. Use Marketing Basics and the Marketing Mix for the first weeks, add Dallas case studies such as Texas Instruments, and close with a small business plan students write themselves.

Dallas is a good place to teach business because students see companies around them every day, from family-run shops to large corporate offices. The Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) set out what students learn, and the Texas Education Agency (TEA) oversees the state framework. In Dallas ISD and neighboring districts, high school business is often taught as part of career and technical education (CTE) pathways.

This guide covers three core topics for Grades 9–12: marketing, basic accounting and the legal forms of a business. Each section gives concrete tasks you can use this week, with Dallas examples your students will recognize.

What should high school students learn in business?

By the end of an introductory course, students should be able to explain how a business finds out what customers need, how it records money coming in and going out, and why owners choose one legal structure over another. Keep the vocabulary precise from the first week: market, target group, revenue, expense, asset, liability, sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation.

Check your campus course description and the TEKS for the specific CTE course you teach, since an introductory business class and an accounting elective expect different depth. The three topics below appear in almost every high school business sequence.

• Marketing: needs, market research, segmentation, positioning and the four Ps
• Accounting: stocktaking, inventory, the balance sheet, accounts and journal entries
• Business structure: liability, capital, management and taxes compared across legal forms

How do I sequence a marketing and accounting unit?

A sequence of three to four weeks works for most classes that meet daily. On a block schedule, combine steps 1 and 2 and steps 5 and 6.

1. Start with needs. Students list five things they bought last month and sort them into needs and wants. This leads to the idea that a business exists to meet a need at a price people will pay.
2. Introduce market research with the Marketing Basics and the Marketing Mix worksheets. Students write a five-question survey for a product aimed at teenagers and test it on classmates.
3. Move to target groups and segmentation. Give students one product, such as a refillable water bottle, and have them describe three segments by age, income and lifestyle.
4. Teach the four Ps: product, price, place (distribution) and promotion (communication). Students build a one-page marketing mix for a new product and justify each choice in one sentence.
5. Shift to records. Show the inventory list of a small shop and turn it into an opening balance sheet with assets on one side and liabilities and equity on the other.
6. Practice journal entries with the Accounting Basics journal entries worksheets. Use short transactions: the shop buys $500 of stock on credit, sells goods for $200 cash and pays $80 rent. Students name the two accounts that change and the side for each.
7. Finish with a mini-project: a two-page plan for a student business covering its legal form, its marketing mix and its first five journal entries.

How can I use Dallas companies as case studies?

Local examples make abstract terms concrete. Texas Instruments is an obvious starting point: Jack Kilby built the first integrated circuit there, in Dallas, in 1958 and later won a Nobel Prize. Ask students how a company turns an invention like the microchip into a product customers will pay for, and which of the four Ps mattered most in the early years.

The Dallas area is also home to a number of corporate headquarters. Let each student pick one company based nearby and collect public information from its website: what it sells, who its customers are and how it advertises. Keep the task on public marketing material rather than annual reports, which are usually too dense for Grade 9.

Events work well too. AT&T Stadium in Arlington hosted nine matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. A marketing mix for a food vendor or merchandise stand on a match day gives students a familiar case with clear limits.

What mistakes do students make in marketing and accounting?

• Treating marketing as advertising only. Point out that price and place are marketing decisions too.
• Confusing revenue with profit. Use a quick example: $1,000 of sales and $850 of costs leaves $150 of profit, not $1,000.
• Thinking debit means bad and credit means good. Debit and credit are simply the left and right side of an account.
• Mixing up assets and liabilities. A bank loan brings in cash (an asset) and creates a debt (a liability) at the same time, so both sides change.
• Assuming every business is a corporation. Most small businesses students know, such as a barber shop or a food truck, start as sole proprietorships or partnerships.

How do I support English learners and mixed-ability groups?

If your class includes students who are still learning English, pre-teach ten key terms with a picture or example for each and have students keep a two-column glossary. Sentence frames help in written tasks: The target group for this product is ... because ...

The marketing and accounting units both use required and optional tasks, so you can assign the required set to everyone and keep the optional tasks for students who finish early. Pair a confident reader with a newcomer for the survey design and the journal-entry practice.

Which resources support the rest of the unit?

For the records part of the sequence, Accounting Basics: Journal Entries gives five differentiated worksheets that run from stocktaking to journal entries, with full answer keys, a 7-slide presentation and a step-by-step lesson plan.

Legal forms and basic business functions compares legal forms by liability, capital, management and taxes. Some of its examples use German business forms, so pair it with a short table of the US forms students will meet: sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC and corporation.

More units on careers, finance and strategy are in the Business, Finance and Careers collection, and the Dallas teaching resources page lists featured resources for other subjects and grades.

Business in Dallas: at a glance

Frequently asked questions

Which business topic should Grade 9 start with?

Start with marketing, because students already know it from the buyer's side. Needs, target groups and the four Ps build on everyday experience. Accounting works better once students are comfortable with revenue and costs, and legal forms make most sense after they have planned a small business of their own.

Is business tested on STAAR?

No. In 2025-26 the STAAR end-of-course exams covered English I and II, Algebra I, Biology and U.S. History, so business courses rely on classroom assessment. Business units still build tested skills: reading informational text, writing short explanations and calculating with percentages and money.

How do I teach debit and credit without confusing students?

Teach debit and credit as positions, not as good or bad values. Draw a T-account, label the left side debit and the right side credit, and practice with three transactions at a time. Students name the two accounts that change before they pick a side, then check against the answer key.

Can I use these units with adult learners?

Yes. The marketing, accounting and legal forms units are listed for Grades 9–12 and Adult Ed, so they suit evening classes and workforce programs as well as high school. Adults usually move faster through the vocabulary and can spend more time on the case study and the final business plan.

Related reading

• Dallas teaching resources: selected units and subjects