Peaceseeker Posted October 31, 2017 Share Posted October 31, 2017 For those if you who follow the 4 year history cycle for high school, how do you cover American history? Do you just study American history for those later time periods or do you do a world history or western civilization that includes American history? I am not sure how this all shakes out for the high school credits. Most of the colleges we are looking at require at least one world history, one American history, and one civics/government course. If we do the two later time periods I don't just want to ignore the rest of world history. I mean, I want to talk about the Enlightenment and all the ideas that led to the creation of America and not study it in isolation. But then, there is so much actual American history to study in the later time periods it can definitely be a course on its own. How did you handle this in your homeschool? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted October 31, 2017 Share Posted October 31, 2017 We studied American history during the last two years in the context of world history. The transcript lists "US history in World Context - 1600-1800" and "US history in World Context - 1800 to present" or something like this. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted October 31, 2017 Share Posted October 31, 2017 (edited) We started high school thinking we would do a 4-year history cycle and add additional info in for American History, but found that DSs interests were moving away from a heavy interest in History and towards other subject areas, so at the end of 9th, I dropped the idea of a classical 4-year chronological History cycle and we ended up with: 1.0 credit = Ancient World History 1.0 credit = 20th Century World History 1.0 credit = American History 0.5 credit = Church History 0.5 credit each = Gov't and Econ We did continue to match up most of our Lit. to go with the Ancient, 20th Century, and American History years, so still somewhat like a WTM Great Books type of study. I know that doesn't help you with your plan to do a traditional classical model of History, but just wanted to throw that in there so that if you find that it's too difficult to do that much History and other credits, or if your student needs the time for other passions and pursuits, it is perfectly fine to change your plan about History partway through high school. 🙂 BEST of luck in finding what works best for your family! Edited October 19, 2019 by Lori D. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peaceseeker Posted October 31, 2017 Author Share Posted October 31, 2017 I am not set on the 4 year cycle but I am considering it. We are in a weird place to start ancients in 9th so I am also considering other options. There is just so much history and not enough time! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted October 31, 2017 Share Posted October 31, 2017 (edited) One option might be to condense/reduce the 4 years of a history cycle to 4 semesters. Then you would have: 9th - fall semester = AncientWorld History - spring semester = Medieval World History 10th - fall = Early Modern World - spring = 1/2 of American History 11th - fall = 1/2 of American History - spring = Modern World History 12th - fall = Government - spring = Economics Edited October 19, 2019 by Lori D. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reefgazer Posted November 1, 2017 Share Posted November 1, 2017 My original intent was to study American History of 2 years, side-by-side with the corresponding world history years. But I bought and plan to use History Odyssey American History, and while it looks fantastic, it is going to be a handful all by itself and 2 full histories in one year will just be too much. So we decided to compress world history into 1 year (probably as DE at university). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reefgazer Posted November 1, 2017 Share Posted November 1, 2017 We are actually making use of this, too. DD really interested in Medieval history, so I am reducing that to 0.5 credit/1 semester. Government will be another 05 credit/1 semester. One option might be to condense/reduce the 4 years of a history cycle to 4 semesters. Then you would have: 9th - fall semester = AncientWorld History - spring semester = Medieval World History 10th - fall = Early Modern World - spring = 1/2 of American History 11th - fall = 1/2 of American History - spring = Modern World History 12th - fall = Government - spring = Economics 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogger Posted November 3, 2017 Share Posted November 3, 2017 We are required to have Government and US history, and World. We do Government and Economics every year mixed in with history. I counted the first year as World history because it had a broader focus. The 2nd year as Western Civ because even though we were still getting world history the largest chunk did qualify as Western Civ. The 3rd year I called American history and it was what we spent the most time on. We still did a lot of American history the 4th year but I figured the hours spent on government and economics over the four years should count and there was a bigger focus on it the fourth year than any other year. I would have loved to label them as Integrated Social Studies or something like that but the state wouldn't like that and it might look like fluff to colleges even if what we did was way more advanced than what I did in high school. He did all the work for the other credits though. The only problem with this is if you happen to stop half way through high school then you wouldn't really have a full credit of World history but Ancient History with some government and economics. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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