cross-post: American History year with Little History of US as spine

[serendipitous journey]

I accidentally posted this on K-8, so it is there too ... I'd be very grateful for thoughts/perspectives/suggestions!

 

We have been using Memoria Press' middle school American History with my 7th grader: it uses Guerber's American History book and a student workbook/manual, and I would like to try moving us to a more WTM-style history.  This child can do 2-level outlines and has experience writing WTM-style summaries, though those skills are a few months worth of rusty. 

 

I have Davidson's A Little History of the US and my child much prefers it to the Guerber.  Other resources I have available include the DK's
"Children's Encyclopedia of American History", Critical Thinking Company's US History Detective 1, and MapTrek US edition. 

 

I'm a little intimidated about WTM history b/c that has never worked out well with this child, who can be hard to teach and tends to skim his readings.  He has developed a pretty good attitude, though, which encourages me.  He will be motivated to do something other than the MP history ;)  and one thing we've learned with MP is to do paired reading for things he skims, which forces him to slow down and lets me help when he doesn't understand something. 

 

Here are my questions/concerns: 

 

1.  So, I'm wondering if anyone has done a 1-year history with this as a spine?  It is one of the WTM 4th ed. history options for seventh.  I think that the history spine + Critical Thinking US history + Children's Encyclopedia + MapTrek would be a bit of overkill.  Any suggestions for which of these resources are most complementary?  

 

2.  This still leaves us without much in the way of original documents.  I do not have mental space/resources to piece something together; I can just go from the documents listed in WTM?  is there a good resource for this?  How critical is it?

 

3.  History/literature component: I can continue on with our MP literature, or try for the WTM way.  The advantage of MP is that the guides give me a feel for whether or not the child has read carefully/has good comprehension.  The disadvantage is that he hates it.  If we go the WTM route, I thought I could pull books American History books from the Early Modern and Modern lists.  The other option would be trying to build a literature year that really grows his enthusiasm for "literature".  Thoughts? 

 

thank you for thoughts. 

 

(RE literature, I had thought to design a fuller literature curriculum this year, but that fizzled with our puppy being rather labor-intensive)