We have used HOTW Ancient History this past year along with the student workbook and it's been very challenging!! My oldest (9th) has enjoyed the book, but said the amount of writing (as described in the workbook) takes so much time that it's harder to get other work done so we are going to follow the other advice mentioned above (answering the 4 quest. from SWB and writing one paper for the month). She has really enjoyed the cartography and is doing well making her own maps so we will continue that portion! My ds (8th) started it this year but much slower so he could get a jump start on high school since the books are so long. I would recommend following the advice from SWB and skipping the large portion of the workbook (or not buy) and just tracing the maps (the directions are in the workbook however). I hope this helps! Also, SWB mentioned she is working on Modern History of the World. However, with each book needing a solid year, I wondered how to add in Am Govt and Economics. Here's my plan: 11th grade: just read the Renaissance book and do the maps (with little to no extra writing), and then add in an American Govt book; and do the same for 12th grade with Modern book adding in an Economics book. The Govt/Econmics are each 1/2 credit so broken up over a year they might not add too much time and work!!