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I have Tindall's America A Narrative History and I have questions


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Hi all,

I just received volume 1 of the 6th edition of Tindall's America A Narrative History. I like what I see. I found the hippocampus lectures and I have heard there are study guides. If you have used this text, how did you use it in your homeschool? Did you just assign the readings and then watch the lectures? Did you assign essays to write? If so, where did you find the essay ideas? Are there essay ideas in the study guides? I am trying to pull American History together for my dd. I am also looking at Notgrass, BJU, and the Bill Bennett books.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

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We are doing American this year. I looked at a lot last summer. A few have told me Tindall can be dry, so let your dc look at it and see if that is so. There are some study helps on Norton's website. I personally liked Notgrass best, but dd picked All American History. It is on the easy side, but definitely gets the job done. I think Notgrass would have been fine, but for some reason she really didn't like it. There are samples online to get a feel for it. I also have BJU, it is ok, but quite what we call a fact cram. I like the way Notgrass and All American read much better. I also looked at Bill Bennett, fine for me, too much for dd. What reads fine for us as parents can be overwhelming for our kids.

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My daughter uses Tindall as her spine for US History. We started the year with Bennett's book, but she ended up preferring Tindall.

 

There are resources, maps, quizzes and essay questions at the publisher's Studyspace website.

 

My daughter generally follows the history guidelines in the current edition of TWTM. She reads the chapter and completes a context page. She uses the Studyspace website to find primary sources and maps. Then she writes out the answers to the focus questions, and about every two or three weeks, she writes an essay based on the research topics.

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http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&wcprefix=mtk&wcsuffix=1000

 

That's the website with resources for America: Pathways to the Present. It has essay questions, virtual field trip links, all kinds of great stuff. The BJU 11 text has some questions in the old (2nd) edition I have, but they also put those springboards in the Student Activities Pages workbook. You'll have charts comparing and contrasting the assassinations of the 4 presidents, that type thing. I think you can see the toc at CBD to get a better feel for what is covered. I like it enough I plan to do some of them with my dd this coming year. The BJU11 doesn't cover world, only american. However it has good synthesis and does a good job of bringing in the religious history. Don't know if that confuses you or not, lol. Tindall is AP and the BJU 11 is high school. It's just not going to be a perfect correlation. Have you been to the publisher site for the Tindall site and seen their resources? One of the editions has interactive maps, live quizzes that will email you the results, etc. etc. There are resource home pages for each of the editions, so search and find them. One of the editions had chapter outlines, goodie goodie... I also posted some more things I found in a reply to Janie in another thread.

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Thanks for the great ideas. I want to look at the BJU Activity manual at convention. I don't want to overwhelm my dd but at the same time I feel she is capable of more than she is currently doing with the Notgrass World History (although AP may be a bit more than we are looking for). I am going to have her look at the Tindall and get her opinion.

 

Thanks so much for the link to the UCCP free course. It looks like something I can definately use. I am also going to explore the book resources from the publishers website.

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  • 4 months later...
Hi all,

I just received volume 1 of the 6th edition of Tindall's America A Narrative History. I like what I see. I found the hippocampus lectures and I have heard there are study guides. If you have used this text, how did you use it in your homeschool? Did you just assign the readings and then watch the lectures? Did you assign essays to write? If so, where did you find the essay ideas? Are there essay ideas in the study guides? I am trying to pull American History together for my dd. I am also looking at Notgrass, BJU, and the Bill Bennett books.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

 

I am trying to decide on US History for 9th and 10th graders. I found your message thru a search. Just curious but what did you end up going with? I am wanting something that is laid out and easy to teach and learn. I want something that reads fun for the kids as I have found some history texts to be very dry.

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DS used that text with this free online course. It has a syllabus with writing assignments. He did US History I and II from that site and got a 5 on the AP exam.

 

what grade was your son in when he completed this course? I have 9th and 10th graders. They love history but they get overwhelmed with the heavy reading in some history texts. Did you require your son to read ALL the reading assignments that were mentioned per chapter? It seemed like quite a bit of reading. Also, how many days per week and how long each day? Did you have set lesson plans? thanks for the input.

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what grade was your son in when he completed this course? I have 9th and 10th graders. They love history but they get overwhelmed with the heavy reading in some history texts. Did you require your son to read ALL the reading assignments that were mentioned per chapter? It seemed like quite a bit of reading. Also, how many days per week and how long each day? Did you have set lesson plans? thanks for the input.

 

He was 11th grade, 16/17yo. He loves U.S. history with a passion. I didn't have to do any amount of requiring anything. What I mean is: He asked to take the AP exam, I called the school to make arrangements, I handed him the materials, I showed him the Course Repository website, I drove him to his exam, and that was the total extent of my involvement. (I did consistently ask if he needed anything else from me, but he always said he didn't.)

 

So I'm asking him now to help answer your questions, which is what I should have done before I posted the first time, and this is what he says: He did go over the writing assignments at Course Repository to make sure he knew the answers (to make sure he had no holes), but he spent more time on the writing assignments in the Amsco and Princeton Review AP study guides because they told him exactly what should have been covered in his essay. If you use the writing assignments on CR, you have no key.

 

He read the entire Tindall book cover to cover, but by the end he was blitzing through it. He didn't think reading the whole book was completely necessary. He suggests spending more time on the portions the student is weak on. For example, he has read so many books on the American Revolution (Burke Davis, McCullough, Paul Johnson, etc.) that he's really strong on that, but he knew almost nothing about the Gilded Age, so Tindall's book was really helpful with that.

 

The videos and tests at CR were good. Using the practice AP free response and document-based questions and old exams from the College Board was time well-spent, too.

 

He spent about 45 minutes/day, 5 days a week for most of the year. A couple weeks before the exam, he spent a lot more time.

 

I hope that helps.

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