Is this a good age for documentaries

[redsquirrel]

There are three Ken Burns documentaries that I could include as part of history before the end of the year. The are Lewis and Clark, Not For Ourselves Alone, and The Civil War. All three are available via Netflix.

 

I am not concerned about the actual content of these documentaris (but maybe I should be...?) My son has begun to see pg-13 movies. He enjoyed the movie Lincoln very much. But I am wondering if they are best saved for high school? I believe I would put off Eyes On the Prize or the one on Vietnam until high school due to some more graphic violence, but maybe I should reconsider?

 

What do you think? Is the logic stage a good time to utilize these or should I wait until the high school years? I am more thinking about how they educate. Is it better to just focus on reading, writing and discussion in these middle years or is this a good time to introduce these long form documentaries? I haven't used much video for education outside of things like Magic School Bus or Beekman's World. He has been loving the Periodic Table of Videos this year.

[TarynB]

:bigear: Curious to see others' responses. Good question!

[AK_Mom4]

DD11 has watched quite a few documentaries this year to fill out her science and history work. We just watched two really good ones on Ancient China and several Schlessinger science videos on various human body systems. For us they are mostly just a fun change of pace, but DD is getting lots out of the videos.

[DawnL]

My DD12 loves historical documentaries, and loves nonfiction history books, too. I think it depends on the child, but if they are interested in that it's a great way to learn. Although I haven't seen the documentaries you are considering,so I can't speak for those, specifically. My DD has been interested in many things on the History Channel. We recently went to the Washington State History Museum and she took great pleasure in being a walking encyclopedia for everything around us :) And when her brothers were too rowdy for her to fully enjoy the museum, she dragged dh there on the weekend so she could talk HIS ear off about everything she knows. LOL

[KarenNC]

We just finished the Ken Burns Civil War series along with a variety of others. My daughter is a pretty visual learner, so I use the documentaries and video lectures to introduce and give an overview, then we follow up with textbook, etc. We also do movies about the periods or the literature to give a sense of the time. We have been using Movies as Literature as a starting point for literary analysis.

 

Here are the ones we've used for logic stage (there have probably been more----check all for appropriateness for your family):

www.learner.org----free video courses from the Annenberg Foundation---we've done most of American Cinema (note---preview for content--these are aimed at college/adult--I skipped some of a couple of them)

Teaching Company/Great Courses---the high school world history and high school American history to 1849, currently watching Vandiver's Classical Mythology, plan on her Iliad and Odyssey as well

Ken Burns The West, Civil War

Michael Wood In Search of Myths and Legends and Shakespeare

Empires (Islam, Japan, Martin Luther, Queen Victoria--they have others as well)

HistoryTeachers videos (history set to popular music---not exactly a documentary, but fun)

Story of India

In Search of History: Salem Witch Trials

American Experience series

Aftershock: Beyond of the Civil War

1940s House

Supersizers Go... (British show where a food critic and a comedienne spend a week reliving various historical periods, eating the food and looking at the health effects---very funny show, on Hulu Plus)

Nova ScienceNow

 

Planned (haven't watched all of these and may not use all of them):

history documentaries packaged with the Young Indiana Jones series (covers world history from late 1800s to early 1900s--see http://www.indyintheclassroom.com/lessons/young_indy/index.asp?indy=7 for a list and lesson plans)

more American Experience

Ken Burns The Statue of Liberty, Prohibition, some of Jazz, America: Empire of the Air, The War, Brooklyn Bridge, Huey Long

Rasputin, the Mad Monk

NOVA: the Wright Brothers' Flying Machine

The Eve of Vichy

Israel: Birth of a Nation

The Wall: A House Divided

Inventing our Life: the kibbutz experiment

A paralyzing fear (polio)

Modern Marvels: Television

A ripple of hope

Fidel

National Geographic: Inside North Korea

Ayn Rand and the prophecy of Atlas Shrugged

Soundtrack for a revolution

Dr. Martin Luther King: a perspective

After the Wall: a world united

The Black Power mixtape

Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird

For the Bible Tells Me So

Pururambo

Monarchy

[Pen]

...

Teaching Company/Great Courses---the high school world history and high school American history to 1849, ...

 

 

 

This is on sale right now and I was wondering about it. In another thread a parent posted that their child found is silly and insulting. Did yours like it? Could you give kind of a review of it?

 

Thank you for your list!!!

 

 

I'm appreciating this thread. We use documentaries a lot and I do not think this age is at all too young, but it depends on the exact material.

[KarenNC]

This is on sale right now and I was wondering about it. In another thread a parent posted that their child found is silly and insulting. Did yours like it? Could you give kind of a review of it?

 

 

She liked it as well as she was going to like any lecturer. It is straight lecture style---no additional maps, visuals, animations, etc, which my daughter would prefer. It is like sitting in a classroom rather than watching a documentary. This was an issue early on for my daughter with Neil DeGrasse Tyson----she loves him in NOVA ScienceNow, but was disappointed that his GC lecture on astronomy wasn't the same style. She handles it better now in 7th grade than she did in 5th.

 

In world history and American history, the professor does each lecture "in persona" of a person from the time period studied (not necessarily a "famous" one, which I like), including costume, accent, etc. which I felt gave a bit of additional insight into the era. I did not feel he "talked down" at all to any level, definitely not to a middle schooler :) . I appreciated the insights I gained from watching the lectures. Each course comes packaged with a study workbook and answers, which we didn't use this time around (I only used the lectures as a supplement, may use more of the package in high school). In retrospect, I probably should have done at least the comprehension questions with her or given them to her as a note taking exercise, or had her do her own outline and compare it with the book. I found them to be definitely "secular" (ie not promoting or assuming a particular religion or religious denomination as "THE TRUTH") while not at all ignoring the importance of religion in history.

 

The world history study workbook we have looks to be an older printing and has a couple of essay questions and 10 comprehension questions. I think there is also a course guidebook that I can't lay hands on at the moment, which may have outlines, readings and the text upon which the lectures are based. Since I could find no samples of the workbooks on their website or anywhere else, here's one from the world history:

lesson 25: The Reformation

Essay questions ask about Luther, his teaching and how it differed from the Catholic Church, as well as what Protestant meant then and today.

 

Comprehension questions ask about the Diet of Worms, what prompted Luther to become a clergyman, Ignatius Loyola, Zwingli, Jesuits in the Counter Reformation, criticisms of the Catholic Church in the 1400-1500s, Knox, Calvin and the government of Geneva, the importance of the printing press to the Reformation.

 

 

The Early American course is based on "The Story of America: beginnings to 1914" by John A. Garraty, 1991 printing (essential readings), and uses "The American Nation: a history of the US to 1877" by Garraty and McCaughey, vol. 1, 6th ed, 1989 for most of the recommended reading. I wish they would list this information on their website! There is a pretty extensive bibliography for the sources of supplementary readings and other recommended readings not covered in "The American Nation." This workbook is laid out differently and ours is glossier/newer. It's possible that a newer printing of the world history may look more like it, but I don't know. Each lecture has a 2 page spread, with the first page having an outline, essential reading, recommended reading, and supplementary reading, while the second page has definitions, comprehension questions, and essay questions. I don't see the course guidebook for that one currently either, if there's a separate one. Here's a sample:

 

Lesson 7: Life in Colonial America

Definitions: jack of all trades, town common, squatter

 

Comprehension questions on the frontier, women in the colonies, land ownership and voting rights, marriages in the South, common forms of recreation, cruel and unusual punishments.

 

Essay questions on the influence of the rivers in the South on the lives of the colonists, lack of river transportation in New England on the lives of those colonists, why freedom and democracy had a better chance for success in the colonies than in England.

The Ken Burns documentaries are so dense and fact-filled that I think it would be OK to see it once during middle school, then see the same ones again later with their high school eyes.

[Pen]

...

 

The world history ...

 

 

The Early American course is based on ...

 

Thank you!!! That was very helpful.

 

If getting just one, which would you start with?

[Blossom'sGirl]

^{I had to pick and chose the Ken Burns documentaries for my 12, 9, and 7 yo boys as they were too long to fit in. They did like the Teddy Roosevelt documentary by the History channel so we are watching it all. It is not an instant play but Netflix does have the DVDs. We watched all of disc 1 and are trying to find time to watch disc 2.}

[KarenNC]

Thank you!!! That was very helpful.

 

If getting just one, which would you start with?

 

Well, we started with the world history because we were at that point, but I honestly think she probably got more out of the American history, likely because she was a bit older (or maybe because she grew more accustomed to the format and I got better at using it ;) ). It depends on which periods of history you will be covering. The world course goes from the Fertile Crescent to the American Revolution, the American one from Pre-Columbian to the 49ers, so there is some overlap (you can see the divisions on the Great Courses website). Obviously, given the more restricted time period, the world course is more of an overview than the American one.

[KarenNC]

^{I had to pick and chose the Ken Burns documentaries for my 12, 9, and 7 yo boys as they were too long to fit in. They did like the Teddy Roosevelt documentary by the History channel so we are watching it all. It is not an instant play but Netflix does have the DVDs. We watched all of disc 1 and are trying to find time to watch disc 2.}

 

Luckily, we have access to Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon instant streaming, so I focused on the ones that were available to us. I find it aggravating to try to time out getting the discs from Netflix (the library is a bit easier sometimes, but our library has a very short return time even for documentaries so it can be hard to make sure we have time to watch).