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Is this enough for World History?


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ETA: Changing the title and adding in since I did some more research.

Would this be enough for a World History credit:

Reading a chapter of k12's Our Human Story each week, pairing with Great Courses lectures The Foundations of Western Civilization and History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective and having him do the questions in the guidebook as either a discussion or written response and using Reading Like a Historian for written output when it lines up with the chapters? It seems that the Reading like a historian asks for paragraph length answers

I am confused with how much output is enough. Ds is not keen on writing. Would this be enough if I am not assigning essays or research papers?

Thanks

Edited by summerreading
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Works for me, too. (:D

I'd suggest mixing up the "output" assignments a little bit to keep it from being a drag:

- Perhaps sometimes just have him answer questions orally.
- Or use a question or two from the guide to spark an interesting discussion between the 2 of you.
- A few times during the year, let him create a slideshow/power point and give a presentation (practices public speaking simultaneously!)
- Maybe every 3 weeks, instead of doing the guide questions, have him fill in a "timeline" page, listing what he feels are the key 20 people/events of the time period he just studied in those 3 weeks; each listing can be kept short: the date, the name of the person or "title" of the event, and a sentence summarizing the person's accomplishments / what happened / why it was important.
- Also, perhaps in one of the semesters, drop the regular writing assignments entirely for 6-8 weeks and do a multi-page research paper on a related topic of interest to him/of his choosing.

Enjoy your World History studies. Warm regards, Lori D.

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How many primary sources selections are included in those lectures? I would make sure he is reading more than textbook snippets of primary sources. 

As for the writing, I would be more concerned with quality than how many words. In an ideal situation, a history course would produce at least one written work - 3-4 pages at minimum. It could be developed throughout the semester and completed as a final project. Writing about history can be very different than writing an English-focused essay. 

In a realistic situation, my son hated writing and we did a lot of his "testing" orally. I did finally get him to produce a written work after much angst from both of us. Discussion of history is just as important as the writing, so if that is your focus with shorter writings, it would be enough. 

 

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1 hour ago, elegantlion said:

How many primary sources selections are included in those lectures? I would make sure he is reading more than textbook snippets of primary sources. 

As for the writing, I would be more concerned with quality than how many words. In an ideal situation, a history course would produce at least one written work - 3-4 pages at minimum. It could be developed throughout the semester and completed as a final project. Writing about history can be very different than writing an English-focused essay. 

In a realistic situation, my son hated writing and we did a lot of his "testing" orally. I did finally get him to produce a written work after much angst from both of us. Discussion of history is just as important as the writing, so if that is your focus with shorter writings, it would be enough. 

 

 

Thank you. I think the Reading Like a Historian has longer primary source documents.

What did you do to finally get him writing. I think I may need to outsource to get him writing reports. 

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16 hours ago, summerreading said:

 

Thank you. I think the Reading Like a Historian has longer primary source documents.

What did you do to finally get him writing. I think I may need to outsource to get him writing reports. 

Threatened bodily harm? :ph34r: No, not really. We would sit down and work on the writing together. Very basic steps. It involved really using middle school techniques. I also made sure he had good grammar and critical thinking skills. He can summarize and form an argument, but he's always struggled to reach word count. 

 

It's not history, but we used Workbook for Arguments to help guide his argumentative writing. He really needed to see real life examples of writing, which this has. 

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On 2/2/2019 at 12:00 PM, summerreading said:

ETA: Changing the title and adding in since I did some more research.

Would this be enough for a World History credit:

Reading a chapter of k12's Our Human Story each week, pairing with Great Courses lectures The Foundations of Western Civilization and History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective and having him do the questions in the guidebook as either a discussion or written response and using Reading Like a Historian for written output when it lines up with the chapters? It seems that the Reading like a historian asks for paragraph length answers

I am confused with how much output is enough. Ds is not keen on writing. Would this be enough if I am not assigning essays or research papers?

Thanks

We do K12 Our Human Story paired with those same exact Great Courses lectures and it's great! I do not assign a lot of writing, just 1 research paper on a topic of their choice but I require them to take notes on the lectures. This helps with retention and also practices note taking skills. We discuss after watching.

They do more writing in their English classes, but I don't require much output for history.

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14 hours ago, Momto5inIN said:

We do K12 Our Human Story paired with those same exact Great Courses lectures and it's great! I do not assign a lot of writing, just 1 research paper on a topic of their choice but I require them to take notes on the lectures. This helps with retention and also practices note taking skills. We discuss after watching.

They do more writing in their English classes, but I don't require much output for history.

Great, thank you!

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