4-year history cycle for high school?

[LAmom]

How many of you do the 4-year history cycle for high school? I always thought I would but now see that what is required is only World History, American History, and Gov/Econ. I know I can do beyond that but with the CA charter school was told any other history would be listed as an elective. My daughter is ready to do Ancients next year and I'm not sure if I should go forward with it. She did history cycle 3 (freshman year) and history cycle 4 (sophomore year). I am counting that as Early Modern/American 1 and Modern/American II. Hopefully the charter school will except that (we are putting her in the CA charter school this coming junior year for various reasons). I'm wondering if maybe I should do a full year of US History or World Geography, etc. I guess I always thought we'd do the 4-year but doesn't seem like many people do. I guess officially her high school requirements are met so anything we do beyond is our choice and not a big deal? Hope this make sense!

[Lori D.]

On 6/3/2019 at 10:33 AM, LAmom said:

...  I guess officially her high school requirements are met so anything we do beyond is our choice and not a big deal? 

Exactly. 😀 There is no one right answer for how to handle History/Social Studies. 😉 Homeschoolers make a wide variety of choices about how to handle History/Social Studies and "required credits" in high school, and are accepted to many different colleges.

Perhaps come to a decision by answering a few questions:
- What do you and DD *want* to do for Social Studies next year?
- What are *your* goals specifically for History? For Social Studies? 
- What are your overall goals for high school? What do you want to make sure you cover (in all subject areas) before this student graduates?
- How interested in History is this student?
- Would *this student* love to do a 4-year World History cycle, plus additional credits in American History, Econ, and Gov't?
- Would the student prefer to do the minimum required History credits and have time to focus on other Social Studies areas (Psychology, Philosophy, Anthropology, Sociology, Archeology, Political Science, etc.)?
- Would this student benefit from doing the minimum required Social Studies credits in order to follow a passion in Science, Engineering, Writing, or other subject area?
- Do the future colleges this student might attend require specific Social Studies credits?
 

On 6/3/2019 at 10:33 AM, LAmom said:

... I know I can do beyond that but with the CA charter school was told any other history would be listed as an elective...

Yes, but all Social Studies credits beyond the minimum requirement would be Academic Electives, which tend to carry more weight or be more impressive to colleges than regular Electives (i.e., things like PE, Health, Career Exploration, etc.). And actually, any course over the required minimum in the 5 academic subject areas of English, Math, Science, Social Studies, or Foreign Language is considered an Academic Elective.

Edited June 10, 2019 by Lori D.

[fourisenough]

In answer to your first question, we plan to follow the 4-year history cycle by taking 4 years of integrated Great Books classes (assuming the scheduling works out...which is a big assumption). In theory, I love this approach and am willing to depart from the typical course progression to achieve it. I’ll likely sneak in an additional .5 credit Government and .5 credit Econ class, too.

My older girls, who attended PS for high school, took US history in 9th, followed by AP Gov/Econ in 10th, AP World in 11th, and AP Psychology in 12th. Their sequence was ‘a mile wide and an inch deep’. The Great Books classes I’ve chosen for DD14 are just the opposite; the first year was spent entirely on the Greeks, and next year they’ll read only the Romans. Very deep, rich and much more satisfying, IMHO.

[Kareni]

7 hours ago, LAmom said:

How many of you do the 4-year history cycle for high school? 

We came to homeschooling late and began in 7th grade.  We allowed my daughter the decision of whether or not to homeschool each year, so we took things on a year by year basis.  I'd describe our homeschooling as WTM inspired; however, I elected to do a three year run through world history.

In 7th grade, my daughter covered Pre-history to about AD500.
In 8th grade, my daughter studied the time period AD500 to about AD1700.
In 9th, she did an at home WTM inspired world history study of the time period from 1700 to 2000.  

Ninth grade was the last year she did history at home.

In 10th, she took an out of the home AP US History class which used Bailey's American Pageant.

In 11th grade, my daughter had an out of the home AP Comparative Gov't and Politics class.

Her interests in high school led her to emphasize foreign languages at the expense of history; there were only so many hours in a day! Her high school record looked like this:

9th: World History from 1700 to 2000 (at home, the third year of her chronological sweep through history)
10th: AP US History (out of the home class)
11th: AP Comparative Politics and Government (out of the home class)

You might not classify it as history, but she also did

12th: Art History (quarter long class at the community college)

We had access to excellent AP teachers at a free homeschooling resource center, and that was part of what decided our history choices during the high school years.

She was ultimately accepted to eight of the ten colleges to which she applied.

Regards,
Kareni

[katilac]

11 hours ago, LAmom said:

 I guess I always thought we'd do the 4-year but doesn't seem like many people do.

I guess officially her high school requirements are met so anything we do beyond is our choice and not a big deal?  

Lots of us do the 4-year cycle in high school! *waves enthusiastically* We really liked correlating with literature. 

One more thing - meeting high school requirements doesn't always mean meeting college recommendations, so just keep that in mind. It's more important if you're looking at more selective schools, and probably for other subjects more so than history, but thought I'd throw that out there. 

 

[....]

Around 4 years ago, I started a similar thread.  I wanted to continue following the 4-year history cycle, but wasn't sure how that would work out with what colleges expect.  I could try to find it, but I'm not very good at searching on here.  We're applying to a public university here in TX and you're right, they're expecting our homeschoolers' transcripts to look similar to the public school ones.  They don't want unique.  And to qualify for a certain scholarship through the school we're applying to, they want you to have the whole world history/modern US history/economics/US government package on your transcript.

Do you have a copy of The Well-Trained Mind?  In the high school section, there's a few pages where she breaks things down like they would look on a transcript.  You would need to add economics...if the colleges are looking for that, but otherwise, I would use her outline for transcripts.  It would still work out to world history/modern US history/government.