History Odyssey Level 2 for rising 9th grader? A few questions...

[mom2myboys]

I thought that I read that some people had used History Odyssey Level 2 successfully for high school. Then again, I have been reading and worrying so much that maybe I am confused by this point. :P

 

Anyway, we will be studying early modern next year and I am wondering if History Odyssey might be a good fit. I believe that some people mentioned adding more literature for a high school student. If we are also planning to use Literary Lessons from the LOTR, would I need more literature choices? Suggestions?

 

Would anything else need to be added for this to be considered a high school level class? Has anyone combined a younger student with a high school student in this program? How?

 

Thanks for any help you can provide. :)

[Cottonwood]

In our Level 2 material it says this:

 

ADVANCED LEVEL: ASSIGNING GRADES AND HIGH SCHOOL CREDIT
High school credit can be assigned for this course if a detailed grade record is kept for each
student. For those wishing to assign grades to assignments, projects, quizzes, tests listed in
this course, please carefully read and follow the “Grade Rubrics†sec on of this guide.
If grades are assigned and appropriate grade levels are achieved, high school credit for this
course may be assigned as follows:
Geography - 1/2 credit
World History - 1 credit
Language Arts - 1/2 credit

 

There are various degrees of student work listed with each lesson.  It will tell you how to proceed with an intermediate student or an advanced student.  To be able to assign a high school credit, the student would have had to complete the 'advanced' work and, as this says, the rubrics will guide as to grades.  It doesn't look like anything needs to be added to count this as a full history credit.

 

Here is an example of how a lesson is laid out for each type of student:

ADVANCED
LEARNERS
Complete Paragraph summaries on own.

“If†Poem: Transcribe, memorize and recite

INTERMEDIATE LEARNERS
Teachers may need to help organize summary information into chart form so that students can see the order of events.

“If†Poem: Transcribe and recite.

 

There is everything provided to grade and keep records via rubrics and other paperwork.  I really like how it's all there.  We used it this year with our 14 yr old for 8th grade.  I wasn't counting high school credit so I didn't have her do all the advanced stuff in that way, but just chose as I went.  Some skills were out of her grasp yet, but those are easy enough to identify as they came up.

 

What is the age of the younger child you are thinking of combining with?  The content in some of the literature may not be appropriate for some younger ones (for us, brutality of war, language, etc).  Plus the material is pretty rigorous and deep in spots, with tons of work.  We worked pretty slowly.  I would think the only thing I'd combine with a younger child would be the mapping/geography work, maybe the timeline work..  Any of the summaries, essays, etc. have to do with the reading and some digging around on the internet and I'm thinking if the child were working on a level below, say..8th grade...it would add too much work to you to support them through this material.  There's lots of compare/contrast and analyzing that takes some pretty sophisticated, mature thinking that even my 8th grader struggled with at times.  

 

 

 

[3in9th]

My kids did HO for 7th grade and this is what they read for literature:

 

Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Son by Lois Lowry

Incantation by Alice Hoffman

Beware, Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

Amos Fortune: Free Man by Elizabeth Yates

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

 

We also read a slew of World History Series non-fiction history books and watched a ton of Shakespeare plays adapted to film.

 

You'll definitely need to up this literature for 9th grade. I think the following wouldn't be too much to ask:

 

Pride and Prejudice, Austen (1813)

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (1818)

“Ode to a Nightingale†and other poems of Keats (1820s)

The Last of the Mohicans, Cooper (1826)

“The Lady of Shalott†and other poems of Tennyson (1832)

“The Fall of the House of Usher†and other stories of Poe   (1839)

“Self-Reliance,†Emerson (1844)

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (1847)

 

And then add in a number of sources from before the American Revolution and after- Declaration of Independence, Constitution, etc. My state has strict requirements for high school English, and says 25 books a year each year if you need a hard guideline.

[Deee]

We're using HO modern times (1850+) for year 9, but I'm in Australia, so that may not help. DS is 14, clever and unenthusiastic. We're also using LLfLOTR. We're almost a term into it. HO is plenty for history here. I'm beefing up the geography part to cover local requirements. We're adding Analytical Grammar (the second and third parts), a focus on essay writing, and our homeschool bookclub (about 10 diff literary works, including Shakespeare and poetry). So far, it feels like plenty.