Ancient History question

[braymalena]

Hi,

I wondered if someone could give me some input on my planning for 9th grade History... I am going to have my ds use the first portion of Notgrass' EWH as a spine for Ancient History. I realize that MFW does this and it is already planned out for me, but for various reasons I am planning my own version. Anyway... I will be adding a few other things, but I also wanted him to read some Ancient mythology. I have debated over having him do a separate Ancient Literature course, but he is already doing LLLOTR for English 1 and I think that would put him over the edge to do 2 full English credits. Would it be appropriate to list the mythology under his Ancient History credit? I was leaning towards Mythology by Edith Wharton, maybe The Odssey or one of the other epics, and excerpts from Landmark Herodotus: The Histories.

I guess at this particular point in history it is tough for me to distinguish between what could be classified as "history" and what is strickly "literature". It seems like The Odyssey would be more iffy and I know I could just list it as part of LLLOTR, but since it fits in the "Ancient" category... Ugh! I don't know which way is best. :confused:

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Katie

[Denise in NE]

This is what I did: I used the first semester of the Notgrass Ancient History as a full year of Ancient History - with all the assigned reading in the primary source book but skipping all the literature selections. I chose to do this because we were using the Greenleaf Guide to Ancient Literature and my dd was also taking an advanced composition course at our local cooperative. I gave her 3 credits for these courses. We never had a problem with the state nor did we have a problem with the college admissions process.

 

That being said, I think your plan is a good one. Go ahead and throw in some literature (I would recommend both the Iliad and the Odyssey with your other selections) to round out the Notgrass. You could spend a whole semester on these - there is so much to discuss culturally and historically!

[braymalena]

Denise, thank you for your reply! This will be our first kid in highschool, so I don't really know what I am doing!

What did you think about the Greenleaf Guide to Ancient Literature? I have been looking at that, but I have not been able to find too many reviews on it. I actually found the full guide online, so I was able to read through it. It looks good, but would love to hear if you liked it.

I really would like for my ds to do a full ancient lit course, but being the non-reader that he is, I think it would be too much for him with LLLOTR. I might just keep the Greenleaf guide in mind for my other kids...

As far as my Ancient History/Lit plans... I also thought that I could just count the Ancient History as a 1/2 credit and then do a 1/2 credit for Ancient Lit. For history throughout highschool he would also be doing a 1/2 credit in World Geography over the course of 2 years, 1 credit for World History, 1 for US History and then the 1/2 credits each for Government and Economics. I wonder if it would look weird though to have only a 1/2 credit in 9th grade for History? For 9th grade he'll also be doing...

Shepherd Science Biology

Intro to Lit Analysis/Comp with LLLOTR

Saxon Algebra 2

Spanish 1 at a co-op

Old Testament Survey

Intro to Computers at a co-op

My ds is on team for gymnastics and practices 3 hours/day, so I don't want to overload him with too much school either. I keep wrestling with having him do more Ancient Lit though, as I think it is important to read some of the Great Books... and what better time to read them then when he is doing Ancient history!

I appreciate any input on my son's 9th grade plans, my Ancient history/literature plans, and also on the Greenleaf Guide to Ancient Lit! Thank you! :)