What are you using for high school medieval?

[happypamama]

I have loads of supplemental stuff and audio lectures, but I am looking for a good spine for my rising 10th grader for medieval history.  He went through Human Odyssey in 6th grade, so I don't want to use that again.  I used Roberts for his older sister, and we thought it was just kind of meh.   So I'd love to hear what all of you are using these days.  Maybe McKay History of Western Society, the first portion, although it's only a few chapters?

 

ETA: I do have SWB's HOMW.  But it stops earlier than we'd like, and that plus HORW plus the supplemental stuff I have is too much for him.  Something along the lines of Human Odyssey or the Roberts book at the right level would be great.  This will not be just "get it done" history; he and I both want to have a really good time with this.

Edited February 26, 2020 by happypamama

[cintinative]

ETA: I think I emailed you about History of Western Society before! We did all the HO by K12 volumes as well.

I plan to do medieval history at home next year and if we get in, my oldest will do Medieval lit with Angelina Stanford.

This is my first high schooler, so take it with a grain of salt! My current tentative plan involves:

History of Western Society volume 1 (seven chapters only) plus Sources for Western Society (for those chapters)  [11th edition] plus Online document assignments for those chapters (I downloaded them during a free trial of LaunchPad). There are short multiple-choice quizzes for the sources in Launch Pad as well. There are some teacher resources (older ones) and student resources (like maps) online that I hope to use.

Great Books Academy study guides (2nd semester Roman year and 1st Semester Middle Ages Year)--only partially using these, so that I have something so we can use to study these books:

• Augustine--Confessions
• Two Lives of Charlemagne--Einhard and Notker the Stammerer
• Bede's History of the English People (partial)
• Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion (partial)
• Memoirs of the Crusades 
• Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica
• Machiavelli The Prince
• Sir Thomas Moore Utopia

My thought is that he will answer the questions in the study guides and we will discuss them.

I have some serious doubts we will get through all of this. I am planning to read everything ahead and right now I am reading Confessions (Sarah Ruden's translation). It is slow going. 

My goal is to have exposure to great books but also have a spine.  Since the class will take him from the middle ages through the Renaissance, there is a lot of historical ground to cover which is why I wanted a spine. I looked at the HOMW and HORW but even those two in combination don't cover all the years I wanted, and I didn't necessarily want a "world" history as much as "western civilization." So I opted for History of Western Society.  I did look at couple other texts, including some college texts that are for medieval history only.  There is a book recently recommended on another thread--https://www.amazon.com/dp/1319022723/?coliid=I25BN6LS00W5HY&colid=231ENAT246CQ2&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it  . I didn't know anything about this text--or I probably would have looked at it. 

My plan is to reuse History of Western Society for my youngest, who will do Ancient history and lit next year if all goes well.  So he would start at the beginning of Volume 1. If we like this methodology, he will finish both volumes of Western Society in three years and I will count the last two at least partially as U.S. history credit.   I will not be able to cover as many primary sources with him because his reading from the spine text will be more (9 chapters instead of 7), but I might end up cutting out some of the online sources or something to add more time to the schedule.  I really won't know until I see how this next year goes.  

HOAW and HORW are mostly narrative texts (as I understand it, without primary sources). The advantage you have with those is that there are teacher books, tests, etc. 

I would be happy to send you my tentative schedule if that would help you have something to work from. It's truly tentative--I highly doubt it will go as planned.  😃

Edited February 26, 2020 by cintinative

[2_girls_mommy]

We did do the SWB book, but we supplemented a lot too. 10th grade medieval was my favorite high school year of history. DD read the SWB completely on her own and took notes from each chapter of it. Together we did a lot of read alouds, audio books, and projects that year. She also did the history context papers for each of her literature books, which helped in the area of the history book not covering as far as you might like. I required two longer research papers for history on top of the history context papers. But our projects were the best. We expanded on several of the SOTW 2 projects from the AG. We use the Geography coloring book and the timeline books recommended in WTm too. 

[happypamama]

Thank you both!  I may end up going with the McKay book; it's inexpensive and readable, and I do like the sources books that we used with it for DD.  It might be just enough.  He likes depth, so a light spine is probably plenty, plus other books and the Daileader Great Courses.

 

But you guys.  I am so dumb.  I completely forgot some stuff that I have in my attic.  I don't know why I didn't use it with DD, but I actually might have a general spine up there that might work.  I need to go get my box labeled medieval books (this is not as nutty as it sounds -- my college degree is in medieval history, so I have a box of Penguin classics that we read, and which I have used with high schoolers) and go through it again to see what my son might like.  

 

And thank you for the list of supplements too!

[cintinative]

18 minutes ago, happypamama said:

But you guys.  I am so dumb.  I completely forgot some stuff that I have in my attic.  I don't know why I didn't use it with DD, but I actually might have a general spine up there that might work.  I need to go get my box labeled medieval books (this is not as nutty as it sounds -- my college degree is in medieval history, so I have a box of Penguin classics that we read, and which I have used with high schoolers) and go through it again to see what my son might like.  

 

If you are near Cincinnati, do you want to teach my ds too? LOL.  I am not sure why I am helping you with your medieval history plans!  😃 It sounds like you know what you are doing!

Edited February 27, 2020 by cintinative

[happypamama]

36 minutes ago, cintinative said:

 

If you are near Cincinnati, do you want to teach my ds too? LOL.  I am not sure why I am helping you with your medieval history plans!  😃 It sounds like you know what you are doing!

LOL!  Unfortunately, I'm a bit east of you. But truly, I do very much appreciate the help!  Sometimes it's hard to narrow down. 

[cintinative]

I think Plum has a list of what she plans to do for medieval in the 9th grade planning thread. I think it was Plum?

 

It was Plum. Here's the link

 

Edited February 27, 2020 by cintinative

[happypamama]

13 hours ago, cintinative said:

I think Plum has a list of what she plans to do for medieval in the 9th grade planning thread. I think it was Plum?

 

It was Plum. Here's the link

 

Oh, you're the best -- thank you!  I hadn't even thought to check those yet, but I will now.

[happypamama]

8 hours ago, Plum said:

Oh that's me! I will have an 8th and 9th grader next year. We'll be doing medieval lit/history. Our spine will be LLLotR and the Story of Medieval England. I know the lecturer from SME mentions Bede, but she's mainly focused on England so I didn't think that applied to a more general Medieval History study. I did pick up the Greenleaf Guide to Medieval Literature because it follows a lot of the same lit that LLLotR includes. It's worth a look since the guide is fairly inexpensive. 

Literary Lessons from the Lord of the Rings.

Great Courses:

• Story of Medieval England 
• The Vikings
• The Black Death
• Some of King Arthur

We'll be reading

• Tolkien ,J.R.R., The Hobbit: Illustrated Edition Hardcover (2013) ISBN-13: 978-0544174221
• Tolkien ,J.R.R., The Lord of the Rings: 50th Anniversary, One Vol. Edition (2005) ISBN-13: 978-0618640157
• Tolkien ,J.R.R., Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Pearl; [and] Sir Orfeo (1979) ISBN-13: 978-0345277602
• Tolkien ,J.R.R., Tales from the Perilous Realm (2008) ISBN-13: 978-0547154114
• Heaney, Seamus, Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (2000) ISBN-13: 978-0374111199
• Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Canterbury Tales, (2003) ISBN-13: 978-0140424386
• Shakespeare, William, Macbeth (Folger Shakespeare Library (2003) ISBN-13: 978-0743477109
• Haaren, Mr. John, Famous Men of the Middle Ages - biographical writing WWS style
• Jones, Terry,  Medieval Lives - writing WWS style
• Anonymous, The Song of Roland  Dorothy Sayers Translation (1957) ISBN-13: 978-0140440751
• Tolkien ,J.R.R., Tales from the Perilous Realm (2008) ISBN-13: 978-0547154114 - selections
• The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Philosophy of Tolkien
• The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way
• The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All (Popular Culture and Philosophy)

I have it down as 

1 credit Medieval History

1 credit Medieval Literature

1 credit Mythology & Folklore - will be working on this throughout the 4 years

This is very cool -- thanks so much!  I will have to look at some of those other suggestions.

 

Bede is most definitely on the list, lol.  I had DD read it a little at a time, and that worked well.  

[cintinative]

Just checking in to see how everyone's medieval history plan is going

[klmama]

FWIW, the three Great Courses lecture series by Phillip Daileader are excellent: Early Middle Ages, High Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages.  If that's too many lectures for your dc, you could look at Foundations of Western Civilization II by Robert Bucholz.  

[cintinative]

So far my son has been working through our spine texts (History of Western Society and Sources for Western Society) and should finish that soon. Then we move on to the primary sources. Since he is moving very quickly through the spine texts, I went ahead and read Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy to be ready if I need to add it to the schedule.

I really strongly suspect he will really slow down when we get to the primary sources and questions. If he doesn't, I am not sure what I am going to do. I have planned more than enough for a high school course.  

His lit class (outsourced) is going well. So far they have read Beowulf and Sir Gawain and are currently reading Sir Orfeo.  

[Miss Tick]

We are wrapping up medieval studies around Thanksgiving. We started over summer since everyone was around. I've tried hard to keep history a class everyone enjoys, so my summer history proposal was not rejected out of hand. We have about 10 chapters of HotMW left. I've been using the critical thinking responses, when possible, to improve the process of making a statement and then supporting it. 

I didn't have literature planned out fully, and sure enough, when I reached the end of my plan ... nothing popped up. In the end I decided to move on to Don Quixote.