what's working this year for US history?

[summerreading]

I'm in planning mode hoping to find something for US history. I'd especially like to hear about any online options but would love to hear about whatever you are doing

. Anyone have rants or raves about their choice this year?

[TarynB]

We're having a great year with the lecture series from The Great Courses (History of the United States, 2nd edition), reading from A Patriot's History of the United States by Schweikart and Allen, plus the book of primary documents ("reader") that goes with it, and writing assignments that I choose from the prompts in the Great Courses guidebook that comes with the videos.

https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/history-of-the-united-states-2nd-edition.html

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595230017/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595230785/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Edited January 30, 2019 by TarynB

[summerreading]

2 hours ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

We're using Paul Johnson's A History of the American People along with the Great Courses Plus lectures, using the Funda Funda schedule. I give dd a weekly writing prompt. It's non-glamorous and working just swell. 🙂

 

 

Good to hear. I'm thinking about using that syllabus too 🙂

[Momto6inIN]

We're using K12 American Odyssey as the text and doing selected lessons from CT in US History (the old ones on CD, not the newer ones in a book format). It's not glamorous and I tried to entice him to want to watch the Great Courses lectures alongside with me that I already own, but he wanted his USH to be straight up plain vanilla no frills 😞 

So he's happy and he's learning, which is good, but I think it's boring.

[summerreading]

4 hours ago, Momto5inIN said:

We're using K12 American Odyssey as the text and doing selected lessons from CT in US History (the old ones on CD, not the newer ones in a book format). It's not glamorous and I tried to entice him to want to watch the Great Courses lectures alongside with me that I already own, but he wanted his USH to be straight up plain vanilla no frills 😞 

So he's happy and he's learning, which is good, but I think it's boring.

 

My son would rather things be no frills get it done too. Is there a difference between the CDs and the books?

ETA: I think I figured it out. The books are the teacher's edition and the CDs are the student copy.

 

Edited January 31, 2019 by summerreading

[Momto6inIN]

32 minutes ago, summerreading said:

 

My son would rather things be no frills get it done too. Is there a difference between the CDs and the books?

ETA: I think I figured it out. The books are the teacher's edition and the CDs are the student copy.

 

There's also a book about US History from CTC called US History Detective that's really just a short reading and some easy questions. I would not use those for high school. The ones we've used are a 4 volume set and go into much more in depth https://www.criticalthinking.com/critical-thinking-in-united-states-history.html

[ScoutTN]

On 1/30/2019 at 4:00 PM, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

We're using Paul Johnson's A History of the American People along with the Great Courses Plus lectures, using the Funda Funda schedule. I give dd a weekly writing prompt. It's non-glamorous and working just swell. 🙂

 

Are you watching the movies too?

[Garga]

@summerreading

This was from last year, but I'm sharing anyway, because it worked well for us:

Mostly, I relied on this Great Course: "History of the US".  Every few lectures, I'd have him write a short-essay answer to one of the questions that come with the lectures.

To go along with the Great Course, he read these books: 

Ben Franklin Autobiography
I'm a Stranger Here Myself, Bill Bryson
A History of US, Hakim--the ten textbook series.  (I would coordinate topics in the Great Courses lectures with readings in A History of US)  

If there was time and inclination (on my part), we might do a lesson from the website Reading like a Historian.  It's a free website and the lessons are geared for classrooms, but they are solid.  We did all of the World History ones when we did World History, but just didn't have as much time when we did American History.