World History for 9th - input greatly appreciated

[mlktwins]

My boys are heading into 9th grade and I have most everything in place for this school year, but I am looking for advice for our history.

In the past, they have done all 4 levels of SOTW with activity guide.  For middle school, they read all 10 (+ source book) of Hakim's History of US utilizing Hewitt's History of US Junior High Syllabus/Tests, and also both of CTC's US History Detective books.  For grades K-8th, we/they have also read A LOT of history books/literature.

They are both wanting to do Modern World History (that is most interesting to them), but would be interested in any period if the curriculum is good to them.  If SWB had completed her History of the Modern World with Activity Guide, my choice would be very easy.  But...that isn't done yet :-).

I know some people match their literature to their history.  I have already decided on Windows to the World and LLftLofR for our literature this year.  

Here is what we are considering:

1.  History of the Ancient World with Activity Guide.  Might possibly add in Great Courses History of the Ancient World.  One of my boys read History of the Medieval World and History of the Renaissance World for fun this summer.  I know both are capable of the reading level for this.

2.  Mystery of History Vol 4 (Wars of Independence to Modern Times).  One of my boys liked the format of this when we went to a curriculum fair in May - we were looking for a Modern World History that would be as good for us as SWB's high school history program.

3.  I have been reading about Spielvogel on here.  Is that the 9th edition and the version I can get for free on-line?  If we did that, what should I add to it?  Would any Great Courses work with this?  What type of output should I be requiring?

Those were the three I've been mulling over and then I read about Ways to the World.  Any thoughts on that?

 We have just completed 2 years of US History so we would all like a break from that -- LOL!  We haven't done ancients since elementary school.

We might be taking an AP Human Geography course (outsourced) for 10th and I know we need a year of US History, a semester of Government, and a semester of Economics before we are done.  Neither of my boys are interested in doing Psychology or anything along those lines.  I would love for them to do Psychology as that was my minor in college.

Neither boy has ever liked busy work, crafts, coloring, etc.  They will do it when needed, but prefer not to.  They do enjoy map work though, one loves quizzes/tests, neither enjoys writing (at all), but they do it.  Big focus on that this year through writing and literature.

Anyway, if you made it this far, I would appreciate any input/advice you have to offer.  

[kokotg]

My 9th grader did AP World History last year....for a "textbook" he just did Khan Academy and then we just cobbled together other resources: Crash Course World History, Turning Points in Modern History from Great Courses (we really liked this one), lots of practice essays for the AP exam, History of the World in 100 Objects podcast, Reading Like a Historian....

for a Great Courses that goes with the Spielvogel, there's a Western Civilization II course that should correspond well....we're doing AP euro now in 10th, and we'll be using that. Listened to the first lecture and like what we hear so far. 

[mlktwins]

3 hours ago, kokotg said:

My 9th grader did AP World History last year....for a "textbook" he just did Khan Academy and then we just cobbled together other resources: Crash Course World History, Turning Points in Modern History from Great Courses (we really liked this one), lots of practice essays for the AP exam, History of the World in 100 Objects podcast, Reading Like a Historian....

for a Great Courses that goes with the Spielvogel, there's a Western Civilization II course that should correspond well....we're doing AP euro now in 10th, and we'll be using that. Listened to the first lecture and like what we hear so far. 

Thank you!  So...you didn't use an AP approved syllabus, but took the AP Exam?  Would you label this AP on the transcript for the higher weighted GPA?  Still figuring all of this out :-) !!!

 

[kokotg]

13 minutes ago, mlktwins said:

Thank you!  So...you didn't use an AP approved syllabus, but took the AP Exam?  Would you label this AP on the transcript for the higher weighted GPA?  Still figuring all of this out 🙂 !!!

 

Right--I didn't submit a syllabus, but he took the AP exam. On the transcript, I call it "World History with AP exam" (because you're not supposed to call it an AP class without the approved syllabus. Because the College Board 🙄). My oldest son did several AP classes this way. I do weight the grades like an AP class, and I checked with the admissions office at the University of Georgia and they said they would also weight the classes the same way as "real" AP classes when they re-calculate the GPA. This was my second kid's first exam, but my oldest did 5 AP classes, all at home on our own (my husband's an AP calc teacher at a public school, so for that one we did have an approved syllabus and he just followed along with DH's class, but at home) with good results (all 4s and 5s). All of that said, I wasn't necessarily suggesting you have them take the AP exam--although it's certainly a possibility!--just throwing out ideas for resources we found helpful.

Edited August 8, 2019 by kokotg

[mlktwins]

2 minutes ago, kokotg said:

Right--I didn't submit a syllabus, but he took the AP exam. On the transcript, I call it "World History with AP exam" (because you're not supposed to call it an AP class with the approved syllabus. Because the College Board 🙄). My oldest son did several AP classes this way. I do weight the grades like an AP class, and I checked with the admissions office at the University of Georgia and they said they would also weight the classes the same way as "real" AP classes when they re-calculate the GPA. This was my second kid's first exam, but my oldest did 5 AP classes, all at home on our own (my husband's an AP calc teacher at a public school, so for that one we did have an approved syllabus and he just followed along with DH's class, but at home) with good results (all 4s and 5s). All of that said, I wasn't necessarily suggesting you have them take the AP exam--although it's certainly a possibility!--just throwing out ideas for resources we found helpful.

This is ALL good to know!  This year they are taking Honors Biology w/Lab followed by the SAT Biology Subject Test and I think will take the CLEP algebra exam after finishing Honors Algebra this year.  We would need to work on essays  before we attempt an AP exam, but we have an AP Scholar specialty program high school about 3 miles from us and will be looking into this for next year!  Thanks again for the info.

For your 9th grade plan above, what type of output was required (other than studying and passing the AP exam)?    

[kokotg]

4 minutes ago, mlktwins said:

 

For your 9th grade plan above, what type of output was required (other than studying and passing the AP exam)?    

Mostly just lots of essays....as we got closer to the test day we did them as timed essays like on the exam; earlier in the year I used prompts from past exams to get him used to them, but had him take some time, do research, and quote sources in the essays. The Reading like a Historian lessons have some written output, and we did some guided document based question exercises, where he'd answer questions as he went along before attempting a whole essay answer. We didn't do any tests other than the quizzes included with Khan Academy and some practice multiple choice sections for the AP exam. On Teachers Pay Teachers you can buy worksheets to go along with Crash Course....I thought about doing this, but by the time I looked into it we were so far into the year it didn't seem worth it. He was more self-motivated than I expected and really wanted to do well on the exam, so that always helps a lot 🙂 . 

[HollyDay]

Have you looked at Beautiful Feet History? 

[mirabillis]

8 hours ago, kokotg said:

My 9th grader did AP World History last year....for a "textbook" he just did Khan Academy and then we just cobbled together other resources: Crash Course World History, Turning Points in Modern History from Great Courses (we really liked this one), lots of practice essays for the AP exam, History of the World in 100 Objects podcast, Reading Like a Historian....

for a Great Courses that goes with the Spielvogel, there's a Western Civilization II course that should correspond well....we're doing AP euro now in 10th, and we'll be using that. Listened to the first lecture and like what we hear so far. 

 

love to hear more about how khan academy worked specifically and what other resources you used/cobbled together. we plan to do the same, but ds (senior) will not be taking the ap exam.

[kokotg]

1 hour ago, mirabillis said:

 

love to hear more about how khan academy worked specifically and what other resources you used/cobbled together. we plan to do the same, but ds (senior) will not be taking the ap exam.

I wish I had some super well-thought out and planned schedule to share with you, but it was pretty loose 🙂 . He went through the Khan Academy stuff mostly on his own (I just checked in periodically to make sure he was staying on track, time-wise)...I'd say he spent 30-45 minutes a day most days on that--reading the material, watching the videos, and doing the quizzes at the end (for the first few units they have discussion questions, and I'd have him write a couple of paragraphs for some of those...but if I remember right they faded out after the first few. Maybe they're still working on it and have more done now). Other stuff we just fit in when we could. We listened to and talked about Great Courses lectures and History of the World in 100 Objects podcasts in the car, we watched Crash Course together, he did the essays and then we went over them together, and we worked together (along with his 7th grade brother) on Reading Like a Historian. He also read a couple of extra books during the year, though not as many as I meant to have him read. I'm not sure if he finished any other than A History of the World in Six Glasses, actually. We watched a few documentaries and movies that went along with what he was learning. Oh--we did world mythology for literature last year, too, with went along with nicely with the history. It all felt kind of frantic and disorganized at the time (big goal for this year is NOT to feel like that all year about school!) but it worked out well; he did well on the exam, learned a lot, and mostly enjoyed it. 

[mirabillis]

Very helpful! We chose Khan Academy as (a) it's free and (b) seemed pretty easy to make it work around his already rigorous schedule next year. I didn't even know how the Khan Academy classes were set up - but it seemed pretty good, so happy to just have those details from you, thank you!! 

[Momto6inIN]

Just wanted to put in a plug for Great Courses History of the Ancient World A Global Perspective and Foundations of Western Civ I. We did both of those for Ancient/Medieval World History and they were so so so good! We read K12's Our Human Story with it and did a short 3-5 paragraph essay on each chapter about a topic of their choice. No AP's but it was such a great year of history for my then 10th and 8th graders!

[mumto2]

I added in some writing assignments from Stanford’s Reading like a Historian https://sheg.stanford.edu/list-reading-historian-lessons