Thanks! It looks interesting -- and appealing for kids. It doesn't, however, seem much longer than what my DS has already read in Andrade book after you take out the nice pictures and comprehension activities. I'll probably go with this complete edition, and select parts; it's more than I need, but it looks to have nice marginal definitions for words that are no longer used, have changed meaning, or are otherwise difficult. FYI, I also came across this Yale Open course; again, it's more than we need, and it's harder to select parts of a video course, but I watched the first lecture and IMO it's very good. Thanks again.

I've only seen the Teaching Co Algebra I lectures, FYI, but I would go hrough Foerster's algebra 2 rather than the Teaching Co. lectures.

My DS really enjoyed the Coursera course on informal logic a few years ago called "Think Again" and even did it "for fun." I thought it was very well done.

Plan for Middle Ages World History and Literature (2 paired courses, 10th grade) Here's our draft plan for "middle ages and as far as we can get" next year (I'd love any suggestions or feedback on it as well as the writing prompts!!). We'll probably be starting around A.D. 300-476, depending upon where we end 9th grade, and the transition isn't likely to be stark at a certain date, but we probably won't be doing much earlier than the year 300 in 10th grade. We'd like to have a global perspective, though I'm still having some trouble finding good non-European history materials. Although there's overlap, of course, I'll separate the history and literature. HISTORY Our spine will be the combination of the text Western Civilization, Volume 1 (to 1715) by Noble, Strauss, et al. and the three series Great Courses lectures by Daileader "Early Middle Ages" (AD 300-1000) and his next two covering 1000-1300 & 1300-1500. I previewed the first one and found it to be terrific and later saw that they've been "high schooler tested and approved" by some WTM families. :laugh: After we're done with those, we'll move ahead with the Great Course by Bucholz Foundations of Western Civilization II (which goes from ~1350-1600 to the present). All these sources are highly European-focused, so I'm looking for complementary non-European materials. We'll also use the GC "History of the English Language" which we also find to be excellent, although it crosses time periods. For our accompanying literature of the time period, we'll be roughly using the Norton Anthology of World Literature, shorter version, which has a nice global focus. My questions are: Has anyone found good complementary history material for covering more of the globe from the years 300-1800, not necessarily Great Courses; and Does anyone have some good writing prompts for history (or literature) for that time period that don't require extensive reading outside the course materials? Thanks!! LITERATURE As I mentioned above, most of our literature will come from the Norton Anthology. We're planning to focus attention on these major works: Dante's Inferno (1300s), translation by Mark Musa?? Great Course Dante’s Divine Comedy (Lectures 1-15, Profs. William Cook and Ronald Herzman). Thanks, regentrude, for the recommendation. Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605 & 1615) in Spanish using this edition, but roughly just the ~129 pages included in the English translation in the Norton Anthology. The edition we'll be using explains historical references but not literary analysis. Does anyone know of a good lit. guide in English for Don Quixote? (Open Yale has a course, but it's a whole semester class, which is probably too in-depth for us to cover the whole thing.) Something by Shakespeare, maybe Hamlet, although possibly Merchant of Venice, or Julius Caesar (DS likes the historical-figure Shakespeare plays best) I hope this helps others coming down the line and would love to get any feedback or writing suggestions for us. Thanks! ETA: edits to major lit works bullets including Don Quixote links.

Does anyone have some good writing prompts for history (or literature) for middle ages through Renaissance world history? I'd really like to find things for that time period that don't require extensive reading outside a few relatively short primary source materials, or even one or two short secondary source materials, so that DS's time can be spent on analysis/thinking and writing? In case you're interested, I'll post our draft plan for next year below. Thanks!

Thanks, Cosmos! I definitely should have asked my question more carefully on Turning Points in Modern History and Turning Points in American History! I interpreted regentrude's as applicable to an adult and wasn't sure if you were referring to you or your kids; specifically, I'm wondering about my high schooler. The European History and European Lives course looked like it might be complementary since it focuses one lecture at a time on individuals, but with the free Merriman course, the Bucholz, Foundations of Western Civilization II available at our library, and our textbook, the European History and European Lives course is probably too redundant. There's probably only time for either the Merriman or the Bucholz course for DS; do you have a recommendation on one vs. the other? Thanks!

I think I see where you're trying to go, and my recommendation is to skip Hamilton and Bullfinch types of approaches. Your DD will remember more than enough, even if it seems like only a little. There just isn't enough time in a one-year ancient lit course, and there are also more important things to do in summer prep. reading. If you insist, I'd go with Vandiver's mythology course, but I'd first go with her Iliad and/or Odyssey course and her Greek Tragedy course. Those will cover just what you need. Then look at the Norton Anthology of World Literature Shorter Version. I think every single entry is more important than more study of the myths. (There are brief introductions to each piece of literature there too.) If you have enough time to cover all of Norton, I'd still go with more complete works of literature and more written analyses by your DD ... and your course is already packed without the myths. Take your summer time for work on writing, even if just reading about writing, reading comprehension at a deeper level, or free reading, Enjoy your next year! It will go fast! . ETA: The Great Course on Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition is outstanding too and worth incorporating. The Instructors Guide to the Norton Anthology of World Lit., (2nd edition inexpensive) is excellent too, even if you don't use the Norton Anthology itself. Finally, if you can get a hold of the Great Course by Gary Rendsburg on Genesis, I highly recommend listening to at least the first few lectures; they're superb..

Lisa, Thanks for the plug on Renaissance, Reformation, and Rise of Nations; I was wondering about that one. We're planning on skipping Noble and using Daileader, which I don't view as that much depth (we're planning on less than a semester for middle ages history so YMMV). After Aldrete's ancient world history, wouldn't Noble's Foundations in Western Civ I be more "if you wanted to go into more depth" and Daileader more of a base course, at least his first two courses? (I'm just asking since I've previewed Daileader but haven't used it with DS yet.) Lining up the chronology, Time Period Great Course author & title lectures Geography or note Up to ~400 Aldrete, Ancient/Global 48 global 300-1000 Daileader, Early Middle Ages 24 Western Europe 1000-1300 Daileader, High Middle Ages 24 Western Europe 1300-1500 Daileader, Late Middle Ages 24 Western Europe 1350-2000 Bucholz, Foundations of W Civ II 48 Mostly since 1600 1600-2003 History of the U.S. 84 Core at least if in US. By the way, is video very helpful for the History of the U.S. videos? For the other ones, only the Aldrete course seems to have any benefit to have video, and even there it's not critical. For more depth, some other ones could be added (of course, "core" and "more depth" is highly subjective); some that haven't been mentioned much but are good or look interesting for us: Lerer, History of the English Language (excellent) Barnhart, Lost Worlds of South America (excellent, even inspiring) Liulevicius, Turning Points in Modern History (looks good, has anyone used?) Ravina, Understanding Japan (excellent reviews, has anyone used?) European History & European Lives: 1715-1914 (looks good, has anyone used?) Kors, Birth of the Modern Mind: Intellectual History of the 17th-18th Centuries (looks good, has anyone used?) O'Donnell, Turning Points in American History (good reviews, has anyone used?) Has anyone used any of the last five bulleted courses? Thanks.

As for format, for us it depends upon the course: some are slightly better in video, some it doesn't matter. We don't have enough car time to go through all the lectures just in the car, and videos do foster discussion after the videos better for us. YMMV. Our thoughts: CORE HISTORY (Topics pretty much every high schooler should cover either in Great Course, book, etc.) Aldrete, History of Ancient World: A Global Perspective. Very good, recommended. Video adds a little, but audio ok. Good for 9th grade Daileader's 3 course series on the (western European) Middle Ages is excellent. Audio perfectly fine. Good for 10th grade. Lerer, History of the English Language. excellent. Audio perfectly fine. SPECIAL TOPICS (If they interest you or for further study) Vandiver, Herodotus. Very good if you want to go into more detail on this topic. Appropriate for 9th grade, but less engaging than her other courses IMO for 9th grader. Ehrman, Lost Christianities. Excellent, balanced. Only if you're interested in early Christian church history or that time period intensely. Adult or advanced HS. audio.

I agree with most others that it seems too much. If the robotics is "downtime," then I wouldn't plan on it...if it ends up being a course, it does, if it doesn't, it doesn't, or it won't feel like downtime any more. As for where to cut, I would tend to keep the math and English first. I don't remember seeing anything about college plans. If the AP Calculus AB wouldn't be useful for a college application, then the BC test next year would suffice. If you're that close to the BC level, however, your thought about going for the BC may make sense, esp. if he's not thinking about being a math major at a competitive college (then I might want to take it a bit slower and cover more proofs, which basically aren't covered on the AP test but are critical for a math major). To be realistic, you'd have to drop something else. So, if you have AP Calculus (AB or BC) and AP English Language and Composition set, I'd make sure that social studies, science, and career goals are being met. It seems like the Western civ class makes sense, with AP optional depending on time and career plans. AP Environmental Science is mostly just the slice of environmental science focused on ecology; since it's not a core science, I'd say it's optional unless you really want the AP designation for a college application or credit. If the AP Art History is really important for career/college, that would seem important. With what's left, the AP Italian seems like the next most important. Again, without knowing your son's career goals, it seems a shame to miss out on the AP foreign language credit when he'll be having the preparatory class ending shortly before the AP test. And what if you were to move from Italy? It wouldn't seem to get any easier later. All else being equal, which they probably aren't, I'd do that AP before environmental science or a history one. If you could defer the decision whether to complete the robotics and architectural design courses until after the AP tests, that might make sense -- not sure if they're at your own pace or fixed classes. Hope that helps a little.

To me, DBQs seem like a good thing for many or most kids in middle school through high school to: (1) practice analyzing primary source documents; and (2) practice writing about their analysis and point of view in a time-efficient way. In our case, I think DS has the first part under control pretty well but he could use more practice writing -- since he's a bit of a perfectionist, without limits he'll look up what I think is an excessive number of sources to support essays and re-read historical documents and literature again more than he needs to (I think it's because he's still needs practice writing efficiently and not that he doesn't comprehend the material well the first time). DBQs seem like a good thing for us, at least until we get more practice writing and get the writing under control. That leaves the question of where to get practice materials. I looked through our library and there was Reading Between the Lines by learningexpresshub, but I thought that was dreadful drivel. I also found this document, Document-Based Assessment for Global History, Revised Edition, which seems useful, and the reviews are mostly positive of the revised, or second, edition. Finally, a free sample is available here. Any other materials that anyone else has found? Thanks.

You might want to cross-post this in a general education and/or other groups. Most of the high schoolers on this board will be in college in a few years. I've heard there's a group called northern Wake homeschoolers (Raleigh is in Wake County), a large group, Cary Homeschoolers, in a suburb of Raleigh, and some other conservative Christian and decidedly secular groups, but I don't know their names. Best wishes.

Perhaps your son should have a big role in deciding the theme. What attracts him to those Russian novelists? What does he find intriguing? I would be concerned about selecting a writing topic which is manageable. My DS, who may be less advanced in writing than yours, spends a fair bit of time going back to books for material or to clarify a point when he's writing papers; with Brothers K and War and Peace, if that were necessary to any extent, it would be very time consuming. Perhaps he could compare those two classics he's read recently to two other novels he hasn't used for a class and which don't have the depth your DS enjoys. One last thought: there's a chance that the person reading the essay won't have read those works or may not have enjoyed them. Although far less common among lit buffs, there is a common question of "why would someone write such a long book?" or "why do those Russians write so long, why is it worth writing so long?" (well, character development, deeper examination of issues, etc., but the idea is maybe to explore something simpler and of somewhat more popular interest -- deeper is certainly great, too, and perhaps more appropriate for a university level class, but I'm tossing out the popular alternative)

Sorry, regentrude, to have you reply twice...not sure what's more efficient on the boards, but since this thread already seemed to answer part of my question (that the courses don't sound just good to me but work for a high school student too), I thought I'd just try to get ideas on complementary materials for Daileader's lectures. ETA: Thanks, Rose (in the post below). I started a new thread here. (I updated this post rather than replying so as not to resurrect the thread again.)

I'm putting together materials for "middle ages and as far as we can get" next year and stumbled across the Daileader "Early Middle Ages" Great Course (approx AD 300-1000), which is at our library and which I'm finding to be terrific. I was happy to see that he has the two following courses (1000-1300 and 1300-1500) and that they've been "high schooler tested and approved" by WTM families. :laugh: We'll also use the GC "History of the English Language" which we also find to be excellent, although it crosses time periods. For our accompanying literature of the time period, we'll be roughly using the Norton Anthology of World Literature, shorter version, which has a nice global focus. My questions are: Has anyone found good complementary material for covering more of the globe from the years 300-1800, not necessarily Great Courses; and Does anyone have some good writing prompts for history (or literature) for that time period that don't require extensive reading outside the course materials? Thanks!!

Rose, Thanks. Yes, the Aldrete History of the Ancient World guidebook I have has questions for discussion. We usually just talk about something after each lecture like a connection with a later time, such as modern times, or a comparison across geographical regions. We've used the questions a few times. The ones I remember I liked for discussion topics. but not as much for writing prompts; they seemed to require additional reading, sometimes significant, in order to make the writing assignment what I'd consider something worthwhile writing, at least if you're looking for a persuasive essay. My goal is to have weekly essays something that doesn't take a lot of reading outside the core course. We do have some time for a comparison of documents in our history course, like my prompt on the characterization of Socrates, or the one posted by Corraleno above comparing Herodotus and Thucydides, but our literature load is pretty heavy for DS. For Gilgamesh, you might want to do something with the use of dreams vs. another story's use of dreams, or comparing creation stories with Genesis -- possibly even getting into the theological differences in how the story is told (at a level appropriate for high school, of course).

After thinking through how the implementation would work, I have a few thoughts on choosing writing prompts: I think that prompts like the second are more efficient for us than the first for a course in "ancient world literature" run in conjunction with a course on "ancient world history: The first one is not the main point of the play and would seem to require re-reading one or both of the plays with a focus on the writing prompt. In addition, comparing two works means that two works need to be reviewed or re-read, which is time consuming. Since the second point is so central to the play, if it requires a re-reading at all, it will be to understand a main point better, which seems more important to me.

Thanks, Corraleno. I really like how you used the bold highlighting to separate out the authors. I'll add a few of my own...not that they're really original, but they're mine. ARISTOTLE Poetics: Is the view of literary criticism in the Poetics still relevant today? Pick any specific thesis and write a persuasive essay of about two pages. [My later note: I found that it was difficult to write this in two pages after reviewing DS's essay. I think it's probably a minimum of three pages.] Rhetoric: Write about whether the Rhetoric is still relevant today (really original, right; now you see why I posted :confused1: OR Compare the Rhetoric with the Toastmaster's public speaking guidance booklet. (DS is in a Jr. Toastmasters group.) PLATO, ARISTOPHANES and XENOPHON Compare and contrast the characterizations of Socrates in Plato's Apology, Aristophanes's The Clouds, and an excerpt from Xenophon describing Socrates. (This is actually more involved than what I'm imagining for a weekly writing assignment, but we'll be reading these and orally discussing this issue, so it should be doable in our case in a week I think.) ETA: formatting

We're following a "classical approach" to literature and history, much like the WTM: ancient, then continuing chronologically from there. I was wondering if people had some good suggestions. I sometimes struggle to come up with good writing prompts and want to be sure I'm having reasonable expectations. We're in the middle of ancient literature and ancient history now, and I'm also thinking ahead to next year, though we have a ways to go. I'm mostly thinking of a weekly writing assignment to accompany a time period or piece of literature rather than a research paper. At least for us it seems better to stick to limited topics, such as a single or two works of literature, and avoid topics requiring internet research since that can be a huge time sink (although fine for a research paper). My goal is to practice writing while analyzing history or literature, and move beyond primarily writing assignments primarily for the sake of teaching writing. A lot of our literature is in the Norton Anthology of World Literature, and I do have the useful accompanying book Teaching With the Norton Anthology: World Literature; there are a few writing suggestions there, but I could use a lot more. I'd prefer not to buy a "course guide" for history or literature with worksheets or short exercises -- really just looking for writing prompts that won't end up being a research paper . Does this make sense? Suggestions for writing prompts? (One or many.) Any help would be greatly appreciated.

OP said "... She is not interested in STEM careers in the slightest. ... She has already taken Algebra I and Geometry, and will complete Algebra II this year. That's all that is required for her diploma from Kolbe, and she despises math and doesn't want to take any more than she has to. ... about her not taking calculus in high school. He thinks calculus is something that *everyone* needs to know. I disagree. But be brutally honest with me: am I missing something?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I would recommend statistics. Starnes, et al. Practice of Statistics is an outstanding book for high school (the previous edition is perfectly fine and will be cheaper). I do not think it's necessary for everyone to take calculus, and definitely not in high school. One of my college majors was math, by the way. Yes, statistics, is sort of math, but it's different and will be more useful in everyday life for a non-STEM career. Statistics comes up all the time reading the newspaper, reading about evaluations of recommended medical treatments, etc. It's a different kind of logic than geometry and calculus and complementary.

There was another general Great Courses question today. There have been other threads, but this is the most recent one I could find, so I'm bumping it and adding a few notes on some of our experiences: Agree that anything by Vandiver is great DS 9th grade and I enjoyed Aldrete's Ancient World History (Global Perspective) and recommend it I haven't seen this one mentioned and DS hasn't used it yet, but I previewed the beginning of "Early Middle Ages" (referring to Europe) and think it's excellent and worth considering for most high schoolers as part of a history class unless DC really prefers books or a class setting. History of the English Language is excellent. ETA: all work fine with audio only, but Aldrete slightly worth getting in video, if not too expensive, for a few short parts.

I've found most of the Great Courses good or excellent, but, as regentrude, the ones by college professors and not high school classes. There have been other threads with detailed reviews. You might need to do a search directly with Google rather than through the WTM search. There's one here. IMO the more general ones work for high school, but it's hard to generalize.

Thanks, Mike! I haven't looked at any of these as part of this review. I tried to go through most of the texts in the WTM High School Math thread, those on the College Board list, those that had an AP course plan using them, plus a few more odds and ends. I've got a few more in my garage, more oriented for college use, but nothing since 2000 that's not listed. Maybe someone else will have a review. Thanks again for your comments! ETA: I looked at various comments on the internet about calculus texts by those three authors. There were a number of comments about how clearly Thomas explained things, so I did review two of the many Thomas Calculus texts. Those brief reviews are shown in green added to the bottom of the original post. Thanks again.

I think they're available for all of the texts mentioned, at least those that have their own paragraph. Cost is a different issue. AoPS is only $49 new, including the solutions manual. Some are over $250 new. Usually earlier editions are far cheaper than new editions, but earlier editions vary so much based on the market that's it's hard to say anything definite.

I think regentrude has a good idea to include some items as they come up, and I really like your topics and the idea of Ethics in Modern Society. Alte Veste provided an interesting link; you may want to include a couple of those historical thinkers listed in the first course (Modern Political Thought) so as to help provide a framework rather than too wiggly (I think mostly unstructured is great, but why not link up to humanities historical thoughts on this to some extent). The second course in the link (Justice) also seems to address some of the more current hot button topics. P.S. Although the Economist has its foibles, it's usually a great news source as you know, and I'm sure your DS will learn a lot over the years.