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American history or logic-stage writing?


What would you rather have sooner (instead of later)?  

  1. 1. What would you rather have sooner (instead of later)?

    • Logic-stage writing course (5-8)
    • Logic-stage American history course (5-8)
    • Grammar-stage American history course (1-4)
    • Something else.


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The biggest reason I think you should produce an American history volume (or two or three...) is that I respectfully disagree with the idea that there are any reasonable alternatives for grammar stage out there. Anyone who watches the K-8 board long enough will see thread after thread asking about American history spines.

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree::iagree:

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To keep my kids together without hitting SOTW 3/4 with a K/1 kiddo (and because I feel people should know the history of their own country best), I'm doing a two year rotation of American history followed by 4 years of SOTW. Then we'll do another 2 year American history rotation followed by 4 more years of world history.

 

:iagree: That's the situation here, too. We want to keep the kids together for World Studies, but not hit SOTW 3 or 4 with students who would be too young to handle that material. We plan to study Geography (1 year) and American History (2 years), followed by the SOTW four-year rotation. Perhaps this will give the girls a gentler introduction to history.

 

I also agree with Alte Veste that there really is no comprehensive, coherent, well-written, up-to-date, and non-racist American History spine at the grammar stage. I have looked for one, to no avail. HTH.

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Learning is an ongoing process, but logic seems to be a lost art. An ability to process information in an organized manner, along with the ability to communicate that information is swiftly spiraling downwards in this country. It's too wonderful of a country to allow this to continue - but heh, we're already working on it by homeschooling.

Edited by Laboroflove
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It so irks me that it's hard to find stuff that is just downright patriotic, telling us to love our country, that America is great, and how we got this way. There are little bits and supplements, but not much by way of full curricula like that. But that just goes to show you'll never please everyone. I want an american history curriculum to gush about america, where the goal of most classical is to make you a student of the world.

 

I would love, love, love to see a patriotic "story of America" that is not written from an Evangelical Protestant POV. AFAIK there isn't anything like that on the market. There are liberal series like Howard Zinn's The People's History of the U.S. and Joy Hakim's The Story of US which I wouldn't use because I don't think they're patriotic enough. Then there are The Light and the Glory for Kids series and A Child's Story of America which I wouldn't use because of their religious slant.

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There are a lot of resources for history, and, personally, I hope to be free of a text book at that age.

 

Writing is a different matter. Many of the writing programs out there have a specific religious message. Some seem vague, some seem heavy handed (I was just looking over the download of The Lost Tools of Writing (which they "TM" constantly...how annoying), and the sentence "George Washington said that he would not seek re-election" should be corrected to "George Washington announced he would not seek re-election". Perhaps I'm a big wet rag here, but saying something is NOT the same thing as announcing, and while I'd leave the "that" out of the sentence, I feel I cannot assume it was an announcement. It could have been something he simply said in conversation. When I read lessons like this, and I want to pull my hair! Can they not come up with a sentence with the error they wish to teach without a jump/shift in meaning?)

 

So, a perfect writing program, please.

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Writing, please. I struggle so much with teaching writing. And that's really ironic since I always received excellent grades on my papers in school! I find I can't really break down the process so that it makes sense to my kids. In my opinion, the best writing curriculum I have come across is CW, but it can be cumbersome to use. Most other programs I see break writing up into so much minutiae that I don't know how the average kid can sort through all the "types" of writing presented let alone apply them properly. I am cut a bit of slack right now as oldest dd is pretty natural at writing, but my first child, poor guinea pig, must have others read through all his papers in college before they're fit to turn in! Again, writing please!

 

Mary

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