What is the name of this history resource?

[dori123]

I remember reading about an American History (modern era) text or program that was really fun but also rigorous -- focused mainly on American culture, 1950s+. (There might have been several books in the series focused on different eras.) 

 

There were fun projects for each chapter; one that I remember was students had to come up with a list of guests for a TV talk show in the 50s and explain who each guest was and why s/he ought to be on the show. 

 

What are the chances any of you know what resource I am trying to find?

 

(Middle/High School)

 

Edited February 15, 2018 by dori123

[MasaMama]

Maybe, this one? "Exploring America in the 1950s: Beneath the Formica". We haven't used it. It has been on my wish list.

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1618211080/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I28QDBZ3UAIHD9&colid=1D60O4WXD6WY3&psc=0

[dori123]

Yes, that's exactly it!

 

I forgot I posted this. Spent several hours a few weeks ago re-researching. These books are amazing. We are going to do a Pop Culture history next year, using these books and starting with 1950s. : )

 

Thanks for responding. 

 

[Farrar]

We used this earlier this year! I got the idea from Deerforest, I think. It was great.

 

My tip... give yourself some time to find all the print resources ahead of time. Many of the links were dead and some were impossible to find. Others just took some extra poking around time. I found and printed everything ahead of time and bound it (you could also just put it in a binder or notebook) and I'm glad I did. It helped keep us on track and saved us time in the moment. Also, don't worry if you can't find absolutely everything. We skipped a few readings we couldn't find. It was no big deal. However, don't bother getting the links together for the videos. Things never die on Youtube. I didn't bother entering the long link addresses. I just searched the names of the songs and clips and they all came up right away - maybe one didn't ever. So that you can do in the moment when you're ready for them.

[dori123]

Thanks for the heads-up. Did you only use the 50s book? I am hoping to use several -- all the way to 2000s if they are good.

[Garga]

We used this earlier this year! I got the idea from Deerforest, I think. It was great.

 

My tip... give yourself some time to find all the print resources ahead of time. Many of the links were dead and some were impossible to find. Others just took some extra poking around time. I found and printed everything ahead of time and bound it (you could also just put it in a binder or notebook) and I'm glad I did. It helped keep us on track and saved us time in the moment. Also, don't worry if you can't find absolutely everything. We skipped a few readings we couldn't find. It was no big deal. However, don't bother getting the links together for the videos. Things never die on Youtube. I didn't bother entering the long link addresses. I just searched the names of the songs and clips and they all came up right away - maybe one didn't ever. So that you can do in the moment when you're ready for them.

 

 

How much class time did this take?  I might want to use these for my 8th grader next year.  At one hour a day, 5 days a week, will one book take a week to complete?  A month?  All school year? 

 

It looks like there are 5 books (1950, 60, 70, 80, 90).

 

What did your student think of the book? 

[Farrar]

How much class time did this take?  I might want to use these for my 8th grader next year.  At one hour a day, 5 days a week, will one book take a week to complete?  A month?  All school year? 

 

It looks like there are 5 books (1950, 60, 70, 80, 90).

 

What did your student think of the book? 

 

We only used the 50's book, though they all looked good.

 

My kid was just ready to use something else, so that's not a comment on either of our enjoyment of it. He just wanted to do something different.

 

Overall, we both liked it. Some of the phrasing on some of the worksheets where you analyze things felt redundant and it bugged him more than me. It basically asked what's the meaning over and over. Sometimes he was like, but I just said that for the previous one. And the questions weren't usually targeted toward a specific thing. So it would be like, what's the meaning, what's the title, what does the title tell you, etc. etc. instead of what does it mean when the singer says this particular line. I think the idea was that in a classroom different groups would look at and analyze different songs/readings and then everyone would compare. In a homeschool, you can just listen to and analyze everything, so sometimes the questions weren't spot on.

 

On the other hand, he really liked a lot of the readings - he liked doing the scifi stuff. He liked listening to all the music. He thought the history of rock and roll was interesting. He was less into the Ed Sullivan project, but he still did okay with it in the end.

 

For the time frame... we spent 3 months, but we didn't hurry and had other things going on. There are some *substantial* readings in there. I had him read all of Fahrenheit 451, for example. There are options to read some long portions of other things. I can't imagine doing it in a month unless you skipped a bunch of stuff or unless you had a really fast worker. On the other hand, it would be easy to skip a lot of the longer readings, so it's possible that if you were really focused you could do it that quickly. You could also do some rabbit trails with it and have it take longer. I'd say 2 months is probably a good time to factor in.

[Garga]

We only used the 50's book, though they all looked good.

 

My kid was just ready to use something else, so that's not a comment on either of our enjoyment of it. He just wanted to do something different.

 

Overall, we both liked it. Some of the phrasing on some of the worksheets where you analyze things felt redundant and it bugged him more than me. It basically asked what's the meaning over and over. Sometimes he was like, but I just said that for the previous one. And the questions weren't usually targeted toward a specific thing. So it would be like, what's the meaning, what's the title, what does the title tell you, etc. etc. instead of what does it mean when the singer says this particular line. I think the idea was that in a classroom different groups would look at and analyze different songs/readings and then everyone would compare. In a homeschool, you can just listen to and analyze everything, so sometimes the questions weren't spot on.

 

On the other hand, he really liked a lot of the readings - he liked doing the scifi stuff. He liked listening to all the music. He thought the history of rock and roll was interesting. He was less into the Ed Sullivan project, but he still did okay with it in the end.

 

For the time frame... we spent 3 months, but we didn't hurry and had other things going on. There are some *substantial* readings in there. I had him read all of Fahrenheit 451, for example. There are options to read some long portions of other things. I can't imagine doing it in a month unless you skipped a bunch of stuff or unless you had a really fast worker. On the other hand, it would be easy to skip a lot of the longer readings, so it's possible that if you were really focused you could do it that quickly. You could also do some rabbit trails with it and have it take longer. I'd say 2 months is probably a good time to factor i 

 

We would skip reading entire books like Fahrenheit 451.  I don't know about long passages.  I suppose it depends upon the passage as to whether we'd want to skip it or not..  

 

So, at the very least, all 5 books would take 10 months, so a full school year.  Hmmm.  Lots to consider!

 

And I get your son's frustration when they seem to ask the same type of question over and over.  We've run into that with classroom curricula as well.

Edited March 2, 2018 by Garga

[Farrar]

We would skip reading entire books like Fahrenheit 451.  I don't know about long passages.  I suppose it depends upon the passage as to whether we'd want to skip it or not..  

 

So, at the very least, all 5 books would take 10 months, so a full school year.  Hmmm.  Lots to consider!

 

And I get your son's frustration when they seem to ask the same type of question over and over.  We've run into that with classroom curricula as well.

 

Just so you know, it's definitely not "passages." It's full articles, poems, short stories and so forth as well as excerpts from books. I think ds read half a dozen or more classic scifi stories. He read a couple of full speeches and newspapers articles. He read a whole article about what made the Beat Generation the "beats." He read a piece where a dozen different artists explained what abstract expressionism meant to them. The excerpt from On the Road was ten pages when I printed it, I think. The Ginsberg poems we read were nearly as long. So it's not just a few pages here and there. There are some sections without long readings too - it didn't feel overwhelming except at the start when he was reading all those short stories and a whole book and I was like... um... but then it loosened up.

 

I think you probably could do the whole set of them in a school year - you'd get into a groove and inevitably get a sense of what you want to skip and what you want to really study.

 

The repetition was good in some ways... I get what they were going for. Like, it says things like who is the intended audience, what is the author's purpose, what problems does this address, etc. over and over. Those are good things for students to learn to ask whenever they meet a primary source. It's just that they often didn't really target deeper thinking about the specific document. And for many of them things like - who is the author, what is the author's purpose, what is the author's viewpoint, etc. felt repetitive. 

 

The big thing it emphasizes is "what was American identity in the 1950's?" I think it's a great question... but sometimes "what aspect of identity does this element blah blah blah came off as very stitled. I ended up rephrasing a good bit to make it a bit more human and conversational.

[Farrar]

Just to add though... I really like the way Prufrock does all their materials. I wish they had more stuff. Even with some of my frustrations with this curriculum, I'd totally recommend it to anyone for middle school. I think it does the type of thinking that kids need to be doing more and it did it with an interesting angle.

[dori123]

Thanks for all your feedback. I am going to try to do all of the books next year. Each one recommends 40 hours to complete -- that's 240 hours and I have 88. I am so bad about over scheduling. Wish me luck!