ValRN Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 I am planning next year's courses and think I've settled on using The Complete Idiot's Guide to American Government. My idea is to assign reading and have my dc take notes on the reading. I'd give a test after each chapter, a midterm, and final exam. On the chapter tests, I'd let dc use the notes he's taken (to encourage good note-taking skills), but not the book. I'd also assign an essay/paper for each chapter, outside reading (not sure what, but doing the research now), and projects. Do you think this would be sufficient for a 1/2 credit? I am not creative and usually use open and go type of curricula. I am not sold on the plan I have come up with. How do YOU use Idiot's Guides...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holly IN Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 curious about this too as I want to use this resource as well.... Holly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trilliums Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Never used these, but I am wondering how many chapters the book contains. How many chapters per week would you be expecting him to do? Thinking ahead for DSs. What you have written sounds like a good semester plan to me. Might want to include primary source documents if the book doesn't already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValRN Posted January 18, 2012 Author Share Posted January 18, 2012 There are 27 chapters. I would expect him to complete 1-2 chapters per week, but it would ultimately depend upon the amount of additional reading/work I assign. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan C. Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Somewhere on here is someones lessons for it, I saw them last year. Try a search, sorry I don't know how to link. They weren't day to day, but there were project ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brenda in MA Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 How do YOU use Idiot's Guides...? My son just finished his 1/2 credit of government using "The Idiot's Guide" as a spine. I will preface this by saying that his schedule is very full this year with PreCalc and very time-consuming Latin & Literature courses (among other things), so I wanted this government credit to be interesting and thought-provoking but not terribly time consuming. He's already doing a lot of writing between the Latin & English courses, so I didn't require any papers for government. I basically divided up the "Idiot's Guide" and had him read 1 or 2 chapters a week (so he'd finish in 18 weeks). On Mondays, I had him read the assigned chapters and outline them. On Wednesdays and Fridays, we watched a Great Courses lecture and discussed it. We used these 2 courses: Great Debate: Advocates & Opponents of the American Constitution (12 lectures) and Tocqueville & the American Experiment (24 lectures). I got this idea from TWTM where she mentions using resources like "The Federalist Papers" and "Tocqueville's Democracy in America" to supplement the "Idiot's Guide". The first GC program called "Great Debate" was all about the Federalist & Anti-Federalist papers. By watching that program, we were able to get a very good understanding of the contents of the Constitution, why certain parts are there, and which parts were controversial at the time. The series was very well done and enjoyable. The second GC program called "Tocqueville & the American Experiment" was all about Tocqueville's book "Democray in America". This program was a really good overview of the contents of Tocqueville's book, and it helped us understand certain idiosyncrasies of our system of government. Again, we really enjoyed these lectures. With my older son, I had him do a textbook curriculum. Given that my children are somewhat knowledgeable about how our government works just from listening to family discussions and reading the newspaper, the textbook curriculum was pretty boring. As a result, I chose to go a different route with my younger son. Although my younger son wasn't crazy about "The Idiot's Guide", it did provide a framework, and the fabulous lectures from the Great Courses really added more interesting and deeper content to the study. If I needed to offer the government course again, I would definitely choose the combination of "The Idiot's Guide" and the GC lectures over the textbook any day. If you've got more than one high schooler, you might want to combine them and have them both do this course at the same time (if you decide to use the Great Courses lectures). That way, you could all watch the lectures together and participate in the discussions. Just a thought.... HTH, Brenda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValRN Posted January 18, 2012 Author Share Posted January 18, 2012 Thanks, Brenda in MA for these details. It was very helpful. My son will also be taking some time-consuming courses (pre-calculus and physics as DE student) while he is completing government, so your recommendation is valuable. Val Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herkey6 Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Thanks Brenda - I have an up and coming senior...I've tucked your ideas away for future use! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holly IN Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 My son just finished his 1/2 credit of government using "The Idiot's Guide" as a spine. I basically divided up the "Idiot's Guide" and had him read 1 or 2 chapters a week (so he'd finish in 18 weeks). We used these 2 courses: Great Debate: Advocates & Opponents of the American Constitution (12 lectures) and Tocqueville & the American Experiment (24 lectures). I got this idea from TWTM where she mentions using resources like "The Federalist Papers" and "Tocqueville's Democracy in America" to supplement the "Idiot's Guide". HTH, Brenda Thank you so much for this information (bolded)!!!! Now I will have to keep an eye on the GC sales for these two titles. Holly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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