Recommendations for High School Textbooks Needed

[Annie Laurie]

I am not familiar with most textbooks programs, as we have only used literature based programs up to this point. We are using SL, and ds will finish out this year, but next year ds wants to use a textbook, he says that SL is too much reading and he is tired of it. What are my options for highschool history textbooks?

 

I have looked at Notgrass and while I like the idea of literature still being tied in, and it would be less reading than SL, I don't like what I see as far as the writing program and don't know that we would use it.

 

Another option I'm considering is a secular text with something like Lightning Lit American Lit.

 

I have also looked at Oak Meadow American History and Lit, which uses a Glencoe text.

 

ETA: Can someone tell me about Stobaugh? Is each unit a semester? I don't understand the set-up. I'm looking at the American History unit set.

 

Any other ideas? I know we still need some literature, ds just wants less.

Edited October 10, 2008 by Annie Laurie

[Alphabetika]

My dd, who used SL for history as a younger kid, is using Notgrass American History this year for 9th grade. She loves it. It was hard for me to give up a literature approach, but this has been exactly what she needed. We don't use the English portion. I'm going to focus on teaching her to write a good essay. If you are considering Notgrass, you might want to join the Notgrass Yahoo group. You can get lot of ideas there.

 

HTH!

[Quiver0f10]

My 10th grader is using Notgrass and we are using IEW for writing. I am very happy with both programs.

[Sharon in MD]

We did a predominately literature approach in the younger years. My son, however also wanted to try the textbook type of approach at highschool and he is not a huge fan of history.

 

So in 9th grade, we did BJUPs World Geography course. This was a good, solid, world geo course....and it wasn't history, ya know? I liked it because it was really easy to plan, the teacher's materials tell you how to schedule and all....tests were already made up (I used the cd so that I could pick the questions though), kind of all done for me. I liked this because I was also pretty burned out from the more homemade and SL type of approach, which my ds really was fighting me on.

 

For 10th grade, we took the year off from social studies.

 

For 11th grade, we did Notgrass Am History...only the history portion. We had intended to do the lit as well and I did use some of the writing assignments. We didn't do the lit with Notgrass because ds had the opportunity to take an Am. Lit class at our oversight academy which was fun and convenient. I would not class Notgrass as a writing COURSE....it is really just some writing assignments keyed to the history...we paired the history only part of the course with the Teaching Company's History of the United States...ds loved history for the 1st time in his life.

 

For 12th grade, we are back to homemade....we are using Spielvogel's Western Civ as a spine text and Teaching Co. vids for Ancient History and then for Renn/Ref History 2nd semester. I'm adding some lit assignments as well.

 

I'll tell you what I really think....I think that using a good text,(as in one you don't mind reading)...like Spielvogel is the key and then the TTC lectures are just fantastic. My son likes Spielvogel, but he loves the lectures. I would use any of these three approaches again as they happened to suit our needs and wants at that time. But, what we are doing now is so much better than anything we've done before. How much of that is the material and much is maturity is anyone's guess though!

[Denise in NE]

We have spent the last 2 years doing Sonlight history and switched to Notgrass Exploring World History this year. I doubt we will ever go back.

 

This is how we're doing it:

 

I pitched all the Notgrass literature (except Julius Caesar) and made my own literature list. Dd (10th grade) is using Progeny Press guides to flesh out a few of my chosen novels. She also also using a fantastic IEW resource called Windows to the World: A Guide to Analyzing Literature. Between the writing prompts in Notgrass and these two extra resources she is getting more than enough writing practice and instruction. (Another option would be IEW's The Elegant Essay for the writing instruction portion. It is by the same author as Windows to the World).

 

I would like to add that dd has used IEW writing instruction since 3rd grade. If you can afford it , I would recommend giving it a try (it works best IMO if you can find a couple of families to do it with).

 

I hope this helps!

Denise in NE

[Annie Laurie]

Thank you, everyone, for so many great starting points to look into! I think we'll find some good solutions- off to research.

[jak of in]

Can I ask...which books did you chose for Notgrass World History?

 

I am not sure I like all the selections, either, and am concerned about the lack of literary analysis. My daughter is having a hard time getting through The Cat of Bubastes. She's a great reader, but just doesn't enjoy this book!

 

I might choose different books and use Progeny Press as well.

 

Thanks for the idea.

 

jak

[Judy]

Just a thought here on The Cat of Bubastes....we listened to the story on tape as told by Jim Weiss. We loved it!

Blessings,

Judy