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History Plan for High School


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Will you share you history plan for your student for high school--what you will call it and what curriculum used?  I.E., 9th grade: World Geography and curriculum _____________, 10th grade US History ___________

What is actually needed?  World History, US History, Geography, Gov/Econ?

My daughter just did Year 3 Biblioplan.  I labeled it as Early Modern US and World History. If I do Year 4, is that enough for US History or should I do something like Notgrass or HOD? I noticed MOH 4 is to not be counted as US History.  So I get confused with the 4-year cycle in high school.  I'm not sure where Ancients fits in and I think a year of Geography would be good. 

Thanks!

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We are attempting the 4-year cycle as outlined in TWTM.  For 9th (this year) we used SWB's History of the Ancient World and will be using SWB's History of the Medieval World and History of the Renaissance World next year for 10th (which is perhaps too ambitious, but we shall see....). 11th and 12th grade will be early modern history and modern history with a 50% emphasis on US History.  I am not sure what texts we will use for those.  I am secretly, and likely fruitlessly, holding out hope that SWB will come out with the next book soon.  Dd will also have a half year each of government and economics at some point in 11th and/or 12th grade (maybe DE) which means she will end up with 5+ credits of social science all together.  We integrate geography into daily history study. Our local schools only require 3 credits, including US History, government, and econ.  Most students take 4 credits with at least one year of "world history" but that is not specifically required.  So you probably have some latitude based on your local requirements and colleges your dc may be interested in.

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I don' know if it' the best, but we did geography for 9th grade bc I thought it would be easy and I was having a baby.  We used the Holt textbook and a map book.  Next year we plan on Modern American history, I'll be using another Holt textbook, The Americans, I found a blue series that covers just reconstruction to present.  I' just going to call it American History.  If we have time, I want to also do a goverent next year, but I need to lay our stuff out first to see if we have time.  Looking at Holt and McGruders.  I'l decide future years when we get there.  

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My kids all do different things for history in high school.  I don't have a set plan or anything.  We fly by the seat of our pants.  Here's what oldest two are doing.

DD16: 0.5 credit British History (I put this together myself), 0.5 credit US Government (put it together myself), Modern US History (Sonlight 300-in progress), World History (planning to use SL 500) and possibly Psychology (as a social studies credit).  She only has one more year left, so I probably need to get my act together, so she has 4 full social studies credits.

DS15: Military History (put this together myself), 0.5 credit US Government (put it together myself), Modern US History (SL 300 - in progress), World History (planning to use SL 500) and also possibly Psych (as a social studies credit).  

We're not really big on history here.  I can barely get them to finish 4 credits for high school.  DD16 will, however, have like 7 science credits (which is ridiculous).  So, they're more science-oriented, I guess.

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Oldest DS: 9th Ancient World History with MOH + extra assignments and readings - 10th Medieval and Renaissance World History + extra assignments and readings - 11th Government with The Noble Experiment (don't recommend) and Economics with Great Courses - 12th History with American Odyssey and Critical Thinking in US History

2nd DS: 9th Government and Economics with oldest D'S - 10th Ancient and Medieval World History with Streams of Civilization and Great Courses - 11th US History same as oldest DS and Comparative Gov and Politics with a college text that I can't remember the author of right now as an elective - 12th probably some type of political science at the CC

DD: 9th US History same as oldest D'S - for the rest of her 3 credits she'd like to do a comprehensive World History/Geography/Cultures/Religions course, Gov and Economics same as her brothers, and maybe a Sociology class - but I haven't workes all that out just yet

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What I would have done if my son hadn't messed up my plans by going to a b&m school for a year and a half:

American: The American Odyssey (in middle school, 1 cr)

World: Ways of the World (1 year, 9th grade, 1 cr)

Then interest driven history and social science electives.  What that's starting to look like (now that we're back to homeschooling this stuff again):

AP Macro/Microeconomics (at school, 10th grade, 1 cr)

History of Technology (at home, 10th grade 0.5 cr)

Social Implications of Technology (at home, 10th grade, 0.5 cr)

AP Psychology (at school, 11th grade, 1 cr)

African American History (at home, 11th grade, 1 cr)

Immigration in America (at home, 11th grade)

Philosophy of Science (at home, 11th grade, 0.5 cr)

AP US Government (12th grade, at school, 1 cr)

World War II and Its Implications (12th grade, at home, 0.5 cr)

Communism and Life in the Soviet Union (12th grade, at home, 0.5 cr)

 

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9th (Ancients/Year 1 in the Cycle):
History is World History/Western Civilization or personal choice*
Literature is Classical Lit
Religion is the Bible (Old Testament and New Testament)

10th (Middle Ages/Year 2):
History is World History/Western Civilization or personal choice*
Literature is British/European Literature
Religion is Church History

11th (Early Modern/Year 3):
History is U.S. History
Literature is American Literature
Religion is Apologetics

12th (Modern/Year 4):
History is .5 Government and .5 Economics
Literature is self-chosen and interest-driven (e.g., Science Fiction, the Lit. of War, Asian-American Lit)
Religion becomes Philosophy, and covers Ethics & Morality - Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, etc.

*My kids have different historical eras in which they're most interested. I let them choose whether to do World History/Western Civ for 9th or 10th grade. The other year they can choose a social studies elective like Geography, Sociology, Psychology, or Speech/Debate. My current student wanted to know more about modern European history, so he did that in 10th grade and covered from 1500s-2000s. My next student will likely want to do it her 10th grade year, but focused on Eastern Civilizations. If so, her Literature for that year would also be Asian/Russian Lit and then her 12th grade year would cover British Lit. 

History is a hodge podge of my own mixing, and draws largely from Great Courses and Homeschool Connections (recorded), with assorted resources and books. I created my own Sociology and Government courses. I'm in the market for a Speech/Debate curriculum to use in two years, and hoping I don't have to write my own. Only one of my kids has opted to take Geography, and he took it at brick-and-mortar school. We usually cover Geography in the course of studying other subjects. I don't award credit in that case, but it satisfies my need for them to be aware. 

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One thing to keep an eye on is how many credits and what specific credits colleges require for admissions. For Social Studies, the majority of colleges are looking for 3 credits of Soc. Studies (a few want 4 credits, some only require 2 credits), usually with 1 credit being Amer. History. Some colleges also want 1 credit of World Hist. and/or Geog., or 0.5 credit each of Econ. and Gov't. Most colleges also accept courses in the following areas as fulfilling the additional Social Studies credits: Psychology, Philosophy, Anthropology, Sociology, Archeology, Geography, Political Science, Women's Studies or Ethnic Studies. So if your student has an interest in one of those, or is doing dual enrollment to work on knocking out gen. ed. credits in advance towards a college degree, those can be great options as well, beyond the usual 4-year History cycle. : )

As a side note: I recommend labeling all of the courses listed on the transcript with titles that college admission offices expect to see, or titles that make it easy for admission offices to see that the student has the credits they are looking for -- American History; or U.S. History, Colonial to Civil War, etc. You can go into creative detail in the separate Course Description document. So just a thought, but to make your time frame esp. clear ("Early Modern" is understood in classical ed. circles, but may be less clear to colleges) and to make it esp. clear that you are doing an Integrated History that will result in a full credit of U.S. history after 2 years, perhaps label the courses something like:
"History: U.S. & World, 1600-1850" and "History: U.S. & World, 1850-present"
or, "U.S. & World History, part 1" and "U.S. & World History, part 2"

As far as what we did for Soc. Studies in high school -- we did a terrific year of "World Cultures/Geography & Comparative Religions" in 8th grade, and then the original intention was to do a 4-year History cycle. But the plans evolved and changed as we went further into high school in order to accommodate DSs' specific History interests, and then we ended up drop away from 4 years of History to be sure to include the Econ & Gov't credits often required, and to allow DSs the time and ability to pursue other credits of interest, and some valuable extracurricular activities.

So we ended up with:
1 credit = History: Ancient World  (History = "DIY" = WTM suggested textbook + other resources, and English credit = "DIY" Ancient Lit., a la WTM/WEM)
1 credit = History: 20th Century World  (same as above, and English = "DIY" Worldviews in Classic Sci-Fi Lit.)
1 credit = History: American  (History = Notgrass Exploring America, and English = "DIY" American Lit.)
0.5 credit = History: Church History  (textbook)
0.5 credit = Economics  (Teaching Co. lecture series + several books + a short personal finance course)
0.5 credit = Government  (textbook + hands-on involvement for 3 years with YMCA's Youth & Gov't model legislation program)
4.5 credits = total Social Studies

DSs also each had a credit of Worldview & Apologetics, but I listed it as an Elective, rather than a Social Studies credit 

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