US History output....

[GeoKitty]

For 10th grade next year, DS (the history buff) plans:

1. to read he three Bill Bennett books America, the Last Best Hope.  

2. Hillsdale College class American Heritage with all the readings (There are a lot), lectures, Q and A’s, quizzes and exams

3. Crash course US History videos

and he wants to ByLine for English, which apparently is one credit English and 0.5 credit History if you do the extra assignments 

So what should I require for output? Besides the quizzes and exams through Hillsdale.... he loves History, and we talk about history a lot. 

 

Thank you!

[Kendall]

I have required very little output this year. Last year I had them take a test over one of the units (We use The History of the American People by Johnson over two years). This year they read and write summaries of each paragraph. 

Not in answer to your question, but this year I did something my girls have loved. They read and do the above for 3 days and the other two days they read a non fiction history related book. These are books they are enjoying so much but would not likely have picked up and read on their own time. If your son likes history, he would love this. IMO it might be worth considering dropping whatever is on your list that you need to in order to give him time. You may find he wants to spend some of his own time reading them once he gets started.

Kendall 

 

[Kassia]

I obsessed over this for a while since I thought high school history should require a lot of writing.  But my older sons attended ps and took both honors history and AP classes and did very little writing.  So dd has done some writing for history, but not nearly as much as I thought would be necessary.  She doesn't like history and I'm just trying to get through it and keep her as interested as possible.  We are using Pandia Press American History Odyssey and she does answer all the questions and does most of the history assignments as well as some of the literature assignments (she is already taking American Lit separately) and that's enough.  

[GeoKitty]

Thank you! 

Yes, he does read non fiction history books on his own too.  For fun. I would gladly drop and simplify his history plan, but he wants to do all these things. Lol

He will have the quizzes and exam from the Hillsdale course.... So maybe just do some notebooking, or summaries.  I guess I’m looking for what would be the minimum to add for a kid who devours history.... 

[Momto6inIN]

We have really liked Critical Thinking in US History for output. We don't do anywhere near all of them, but many of the lessons are really good for short essays.

[Roadrunner]

4 hours ago, Momto5inIN said:

We have really liked Critical Thinking in US History for output. We don't do anywhere near all of them, but many of the lessons are really good for short essays.

Would you consider it light for high school history? I have the first volume sitting on my shelf and I can’t decide if reading a page a day and answering multiple choice questions is high school worthy creditwise. I am also not sure if it would come even close to prepping for SAT US history test. It seems so easy to use though, so that’s my attraction.

[Momto6inIN]

56 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Would you consider it light for high school history? I have the first volume sitting on my shelf and I can’t decide if reading a page a day and answering multiple choice questions is high school worthy creditwise. I am also not sure if it would come even close to prepping for SAT US history test. It seems so easy to use though, so that’s my attraction.

The ones I have are not multiple choice. I think there is a new one from CT, named something like US History Detective, maybe that's the one you have? I have an older version that comes in 4 volumes (I have CD ROMs not a book) and are by somebody named O'Reilly I think. They are definitely high school credit worthy, I think Funda Funda uses them in her APUSH course.

eta: these are the ones I have https://www.criticalthinking.com/critical-thinking-in-united-states-history.html

[Roadrunner]

Yep, I have the new one.

[GeoKitty]

I will look at the Critical Thinking books, but it sounds like those will add way more than I am looking for.  Thank you though!  

[Another Lynn]

Instead of summaries, what about doing a larger paper - one each semester? - depending on what his English class is doing and also his interests since he likes this subject.  

[GeoKitty]

Thanks, Lynne... he wants to do ByLine for English... which seems to be historical writing. And has some way of getting a half credit of History with additional assignments....  it looks like a lot of writing.  But idk yet. 

If only do two papers technically for history (with the quizzes and exam from Hillsdale ) if that enough? How long would be proper for tenth grade? My head thinks 8-10 pages..... but I’m guessing that’s too long.

[GeoKitty]

Anyone else?  Thanks!

[shburks]

Honestly, if he has required writing for English with an added history element plus all the history courses he's taking (and clearly loving), I don't know that I would require much more in the way of output. I think lots of discussion and "What do you think" give and take would be what you need to evaluate his understanding. If he has quizzes and exams plus Q&As for the HIllsdale class AND you want to have him do two history-specific papers, I think that's more than enough.

My son is passionate about history, too, and writing 8-10 pages should be doable depending on the topics you/he chose to write about. If you get into the year and the writing for his ByLine class is a lot, you could always change that to 5-8 pages or something. 

[Lucy the Valiant]

We have a similar question in this house, and the WTM answer is a historical research paper in both 9th and 10th, "proving a thesis about some historical event or series of events, using three to eight historical resources, both primary . . . and secondary" (p.498, WTM 2004). This paper is in addition to the annotations for the historical and literary books from that time period - this is what we are going to aim for in our 9th/10th grade world history next year. :) 

[EKS]

I required that my older son write a summary of each chapter.  There were 42 chapters, and I see now that it was way too much.

I required far less of the younger one.  He did maybe 10 short papers and took 4 unit tests (I must have given up on the rest of the units, because I know there were more than four units).

If I were to do it over again, I would require 9-10 short papers (like 1-3 pages), and that would be it.

[Another Lynn]

On 4/6/2018 at 8:11 AM, GeoKitty said:

Thanks, Lynne... he wants to do ByLine for English... which seems to be historical writing. And has some way of getting a half credit of History with additional assignments....  it looks like a lot of writing.  But idk yet. 

If only do two papers technically for history (with the quizzes and exam from Hillsdale ) if that enough? How long would be proper for tenth grade? My head thinks 8-10 pages..... but I’m guessing that’s too long.

It would be enough for me.  I would be comfortable with less than 8-10 pages.  

[GeoKitty]

Thank you so very much everyone! You have all been so very helpful ?

[EKS]

On 4/6/2018 at 5:11 AM, GeoKitty said:

If only do two papers technically for history (with the quizzes and exam from Hillsdale ) if that enough? How long would be proper for tenth grade? My head thinks 8-10 pages..... but I’m guessing that’s too long.

Instead of working backwards from a specific number of pages in designing the assignment(s), I'd think about what your learning goals are for your son in assigning the paper(s).  If you just want him to report on an event or events in history, and the paper will merely be a long summary or series of summaries, then 8-10 pages might make sense.  But if you would rather that he do his own thinking, analysis, and synthesis, for a high school student, it is far too long.  One format that I've had success with is the summary and response paper.  These can be any length, but for novices (such as high school students), I'd recommend starting in the ballpark of 300-500 words.

The summary and response format is excellent pedagogically because it forces students to think carefully about a particular text in order to summarize it and then to think *further* about how the text relates to their *own* thinking in order to write their response.  Most kids are used to writing about facts and to some extent writing about what other's think, but they are not used to writing in a rigorous academic way about what they themselves think.  The summary and response paper forces them to do this in a relatively accessible way.

Another great thing about this format is that it forms the kernel of much academic writing.  You present what another thinker has written about a topic or question (the summary) and then you present your own thinking about it (the response).  With some finessing, put together two or three or four of these, tie them together with a synthesis question (or a thesis, or whatever), dress it all up with an introduction and a conclusion, and you have the makings of a synthesis essay or an argumentative essay or an exploratory essay or whatever.  I like starting with the summary and response because it focuses attention on the meat of any paper--the body--instead of fancy introductions with hooks or conclusions with thought provoking final sentences.  

So you give your student a short text.  This could be an article, a book chapter, a primary source, or even an interesting section of their textbook.  It may help if the source text is written in the form of an argument.  Have him write a 200 word summary that starts with a one sentence that includes the author's name, the title of the text, and a concise summary of the author's argument ("In 'Title of Text' Joan Smith argues that...").  Then he should follow this up with a bit of detail, using attributive tags in every sentence (because it is important for students to learn how to signal when they're writing about someone else's thoughts and when they're writing about their own).  Then in the next paragraph, he will respond ("Smith makes a good point about...but her argument falls short in that..." or whatever).  He should cite his source(s) properly and not use an online citation generator (citing sources is not rocket science).

Over the course of the year you can alter the format gradually--for example background, summary, response or use more than one text by having him write a summary, summary, response, or summary/analysis, summary/analysis, synthesis, etc.  Be sure to give more time if you are assigning more texts.

I think that doing several of these shorter papers is far preferable to one or two longer report style papers.  

[GeoKitty]

EKS.... thank you so much for your response.  That’s brilliant!  I think he would really enjoy doing that. We do use primarily conservative materials, but we read, discuss, debate opposing viewpoints as well, which would lend itself perfectly to your summary/ response suggestion! Thank you!

[Garga]

On 4/4/2018 at 5:08 PM, GeoKitty said:

For 10th grade next year, DS (the history buff) plans:

1. to read he three Bill Bennett books America, the Last Best Hope.  

2. Hillsdale College class American Heritage with all the readings (There are a lot), lectures, Q and A’s, quizzes and exams

3. Crash course US History videos

and he wants to ByLine for English, which apparently is one credit English and 0.5 credit History if you do the extra assignments 

So what should I require for output? Besides the quizzes and exams through Hillsdale.... he loves History, and we talk about history a lot. 

 

Thank you!

I would be satisfied with the Q&As, quizzes, tests, and extra assignments for ByLine.  

If you do require more output, I, personally, would stay away from more serious work and come up with some sort of project.  Perhaps pick a favorite time period from Am History and have him plan a trip to that time period in his time machine.  His job would be to make sure he has everything he needs to survive in that time period: the proper clothing, the proper amount of money, the proper supplies, know what areas to avoid.  Have him decide exactly which dates to arrive and when to leave.  Make it a requirement that he has to travel to a historical event and observe it.  You could have this go in many directions.  Maybe he's required to find someone famous and give them a message from the future "Do NOT go to the theater, Mr. Lincoln."  Or find some other way to change history.  Or he would have to write a few journal entries about what he found there in the past and who he met and talked to.  Perhaps draw a map of the area he'll be traveling in.

If you do it right, he'll be researching just as much as for an 8-10 page paper, but perhaps being a little more whimsical about it will make it more memorable and keep this school year from being drudgery.  It depends on the kid.  My son likes something a little more fanciful in the middle of the regular grind of quizzes and essays and question/answers. My son's 9th grade year was too much drudge, so I tried adding a few projects like the above to a couple of his classes for 10th grade. Since your son will already be doing serious work for his other classes, you could make your requirements a little more creative.

[GeoKitty]

Garga.... thank you! That is a completely different type of assignment. I really had not considered doing something so creative.  Thank you!

[2_girls_mommy]

My 10th grader is doing it ala WTM for the most part. She is reading from The History of the X World series. She takes notes on each chapter, answering the exact 4 questions from WTM on each. We watch documentaries together. Her lit is tied to history ala WTM, so for each lit book that she starts she does a history context page which is a 1-2 page paper. She has done maybe two of those a semester. I have had her write one paper per semester on any topic of her choice. One was a presentation she had to give at co-op that I assigned everyone. They all created a poster about their topic and gave a presentation orally. For the second semester she had to end with about a three page paper. We also do a lot of projects and some field trips. We built giant castles where the kids learned about castle architecture and daily life, and then were challenged to build one and design new defenses for it. We visited a Renaissance fair and talked to some of the artisans who explained their crafts. We still tie art and art history and poetry to history, so during Japanese studies we read books on Haiku and learned a lot about their construction, things like that.  I am happy with our amount of output for history. 

[GeoKitty]

Thank you 2 girls mommy! 

Thats very helpful!