Choosing history curricula for logic and rhetoric.......Oh the choices!

[Janie]

During this final nine weeks, I must make history curricula decisions to suggest to the administration. They are (or so they say) more than willing to change curricula at this point.

 

Since I think the best decisions made would be based on a 12-K approach (deciding what we want in a 12th grader and working backwards to accomplish it), I favor Omnibus (literature) and Spielvogel history combination in TWTM sequence. That said, I must decide on logic stage (5th--8th grades).

 

Current choices are

* SOTW

* VP history

* Rod & Staff history (5th-North Amer, 6th-Latin America, 7th-Old World, 8th-North Amer)

* BJUP

* ABeka

 

I have decided that whatever I choose for logic sequence, I will add the ABeka geography book (8th grade, I believe) and use the coordinating portions from it with the historical areas covered. I have always thought that the ABeka geography book is an excellent supplement.

 

PLEASE add to this list for me to consider and/or share your comments. With everything going on, I'm afraid I will completely forget something I might really want to use. Thanks, ladies!

 

 

[Robin in Tx]

If I had to do it over again, I would do SOTW in 5th and 6th (over 2 years like Sonlight does). Then American history in 7th (Hakim, maybe) and geography in 8th (compare BJU's 9th grade text with Abeka's 8th - it's pretty good and gives an overview of world history by region. Actually, that is what we're going to do next - BJU's geography... then I'll do history TWTM-style in rhetoric stage. I like the year in American history in middle school because I honestly think that ONE year of American history sometime between 7th-12th is a good thing. And I really like the geography course... so, to me, this is the best of both world.s

 

HTH, and good luck! Congratulations on the success you've obviously had with this school - it sounds like they're really listening to you!

Robin

[Laura K (NC)]

As I thumbed through it, it looked like as good a textbook as I could find. Then as my son and I went along, and I read the chapters, I found a very definite Mennonite bias that distorted history. It's true that all textbooks have a bias, but unless your students are Mennonite, you're going to have a hard time overcoming this one.

 

I also thought a year of American History was a good thing before high school. After bouncing back and forth between Rod & Staff and a Catholic text for almost half a year, thinking maybe a study in biases might be fruitful, my son just read Don't Know Much About History and read a lot of historical fiction and some other related history texts. It was an unsatisfactory year, as far as I was concerned, because it wasn't as systematic as I would have liked.

[Robin in Tx]

I have R&S 5th grade text, and I agree that it is heavily biased toward the mennonite spin on events... it's actually a pretty good book because it is straightforward, concise, is not overly pro-American and covers plenty of Canadian geography and history (and actually discusses things that most American history texts don't, such as criticizing the colonists at the Boston Tea Party for destroying another's property). For those reasons, I've enjoyed referring to it, but I don't see how you could use this in a classroom setting unless there are a lot of mennonite families there... the kids will take these books home and their parents will look at them, and likely be uncomfortable.

 

Robin

[Karenciavo]

I have a friend who teaches at a classical school and he is frustrated with Veritas, not enough teacher helps, extras, things like that. He feels like *he* is working so hard to pull it off. That being said, I see this problem as one that might be around the first couple of years, but as years go on lesson plans should get fleshed out more and more.

[FloridaLisa]

Have you ruled out Tapestry of Grace? Here's why I think it could work. I like Robin's idea of 2 years of world history, one year of American history and a full year of geography. However, this is for a Christian school that is used to Christian materials, right? SOTW and Hakim would be completely secular and would require the teacher to weave in lots of outside resources and knowledge to present a Christian worldview.

 

I've used VP materials for many years, but I grew tired of the parroting-back style of the worksheets. The writings included in the teacher-book were vacuum-dust dry and the sparsely suggested hands-on projects never excited my kiddos. Also, VP uses a 5-year history cycle so more tailoring would be necessary to narrow it to 4 years. After years of VP, I now only use the cards.

 

So, what about TOG? I think it's an outstanding choice for the classroom. It includes a history spine, literature, writing assignments, a selection of living books and lots of hands-on projects. TOG's strength is weaving the Christian worldview throughout. It has gobs of teacher notes and teacher helps. A teacher could incorporate art and composer studies. And I think it's perfect for the logic years of 5th-8th and well suited for the classroom or co-op. Also, it's based on the 4-year cycle.

 

Just another thought.

Many blessings,

Lisa

[Karen in CO]

Agreeing with Lisa. I think TOG would be great.

[Robin in Tx]

Janie, I just thought of something - isn't Omnibus a three year cycle? How you will combine that with Spielvogel over four years? If anyone has a plan for how to do this, I'd love to hear it.

 

Robin

[Melissa in Australia]

what I am doing is SOTW from 5th-to 8th grade and spielvogel al a WTM for 9th to 12th I bought History of the whole world, bit haven't worked out how to use it yet. thinking of just getting my son to read each chapter as it relates to speivogel.

MelissaL

[Chris in VA]

Are you saying you favor Omnibus w/Spielvogel for high school? I could go with that. I would use whole chapters of Spielvogel, tho', not the snippets they recommend at the end of the essays. Also, what would you use for the last year, as it's a 3 year rotation? You could make the lit a little stronger in the contemporary stage--maybe doing a whole semester of poetry, and some more modern lit, or plays and poetry, or something like that. You could also offer a semester of just Shakespeare in 12th, with "The Modern Novel," or something like that for the second semester. You could do missions studies for a semester, or offer non-Western studies with it.

 

Ok--that was just high school! What you really asked was middle school!

I would hesitate to use SOTW with 5th and 6th, as I truly do think it is too easy. Could you use Mystery of History, perhaps with the Veritas history cards and Kingfisher outlining? Have them keep a timeline, too? Will they be notebooking? I would encourage memorization of the sentences and dates on the cards, like Classical Conversations does (but with dates, too), making timeline figures and notebook pages (or using the web to search for timeline figures like we do), and perhaps using Gerber or MOH as your spine, with lots of reading outside. Might be too expensive for school, tho.

 

TOG seems like a good option also, as some have said. I just can't figure out how to use it! lol I'd rather use just one or two books as spines.

 

Winter Promise has a good middle school option for medieval--they use MOH, but schedule it differently (chunking together by region, I think, which might be good for your study of geography). I think a year of non-Western cultures would be good, particularly if there's any missions focus at the school.

 

Just some ideas!