High School U.S. History Resources

[bicebunch]

I am having a very difficult time this year finding really good and very interesting high school level U.S. history resources/curriculum (such as a wonderful spine book/literary U.S. book to use along with good biographies and literature) for a daughter who is of average abilities. I have had Paul Johnson's book A History of the American People as well as Peter Marshall's The Light and the Glory series, and Notgrass's Exploring America suggested to me, but I have questions about all these and wonder if there is even a better suggestion for us to use. We started Paul Johnson's U.S. history book and as we began it seemed confusing to her and lost her interest in the first chapter. Does this get better after the first chapter for those who have read it. Peter Marshall's series does not cover U.S History beyond the Civil War period, and since I have not read this myself either I do not know about the quality of this. Will Notgrass's high school U.S. history just be a boring text book to our daughter. She is a difficult student to find material for that she does not think is boring, and I really want to help her enjoy learning history, yet to be challenged but not so advanced that I lose her either. Can anyone help me? Our older children used Carson's U.S. history volumes for high school and really liked these, but I know our daughter will find those too dry for her. I need to find something really good and interesting as soon as possible. I just recently read a little bit about William Bennett's history series, but not having ever seen these I do not know who good these books will be presenting a really good Christian worldview like Francis Schaeffer's book How Should We Then Live? does. I would really appreciate help! Thank you!

[CyndiLJ]

Maybe move away from the whole textbook idea and work with something less structured. How about Cicero online history curriculum? The History Channel's multimedia history curriculum? How about creating a curriculum with a lower level textbook as your spine, so that the concepts are easily understood without a lot of tedium, but then really work with movies to explore topics? Although I am not quite there yet, I have a couple with unique needs and a textbook alone will not work for us, so I have been researching other possibilities and will hope others throw in ideas too! :bigear:

 

Cindy

[kRenee]

I'm going to use many of the Teaching Company/Great Courses dvd's in combination with books to cover US History for my son. I like watching the dvd's too, and then we talk about them. Each lesson is a half-hour lecture, so it's not too long.

 

Our library has many of the TC lectures. Check yours to see if they do too.

[Jenny in Florida]

My son is enjoying this resource: http://www.hippocampus.org/History%20%26%20Government;jsessionid=A1A9475DE3674F19D8129BD15F3F6216

 

We're also doing some of the units from American History on the Screen: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/american-history-on-the-screen-wendy-s-wilson/1111862883?ean=9780825144516

[angela in ohio]

We are using a basic textbook plus literature and writings from the time periods, but my dd's favorite part is finding other books to read, too. So far she has read Mayflower (Philbrick) and 1776 (McCullough.) I'm just hitting Amazon as we go along, buying a few at a time. She also read A Patriot's History and really liked that.

[Keniki]

Maybe move away from the whole textbook idea and work with something less structured. How about Cicero online history curriculum? The History Channel's multimedia history curriculum? How about creating a curriculum with a lower level textbook as your spine, so that the concepts are easily understood without a lot of tedium, but then really work with movies to explore topics? Although I am not quite there yet, I have a couple with unique needs and a textbook alone will not work for us, so I have been researching other possibilities and will hope others throw in ideas too! :bigear:

 

Cindy

 

Do you have a link for this? I have access to History Channel dvd's through our library, but I'm not finding anything about a curriculum on their website.

[Candid]

If you are willing to move away from a one text program, I'd take a look at Tapestry of Grace which I think will suit your desired world view.

 

BUT this will not be a one year course. If you cut out all the sections where they focus on outside of US material, you can probably cover it in two years.

[LBS]

We did like a combination of Notgrass, Walch's Short Lessons in American History for a break, the Monterey Institute U.S.History course, some Hippocampus, some movies. Got tired of it all. Now we've gone on to William Bennett's America Last Best Hope and the least expensive subscription of the roadmap. We're still watching good movies, and creating a huge notebook, using timelines, reading log (notetaking help), key people, key events, terms and places, Laws, and the economic lessons part.

 

Kiddo's a big mess, so creating an organized notebook is a big deal, and lots of printing. Good thing those discount ink cartidges off Amazon actually worked in my printer.

 

The Roadmap is quite useful, way too much stuff, so we have to pick and choose what to use. Mr. Bennett's MP3 intro, and "beyond the chapter" are neat. I was using too many parts of other things, I guess. They were all good, just too many. I like Bennett as a spine better than Notgrass....

 

Elder son used Carson for a Scout leadership seminar, but it was not colorful/alive enough for this kid.

[3andme]

Have you looked at PAC's American History books? They are very readable and give a lot of attention to cultural history. There are accompanying activity workbooks for review. You can see additional samples for each chapter on CBD's website.