History that doesn't strictly follow a 4-year cycle?

[Shelly in VA]

Has anyone covered history at the high school level without following the 4-year cycle? I followed that with my older kids who have all graduated and gone on to college, but I'm looking to try something different this last time around with my youngest ds who will be a sophomore this fall. I considered a full year of geography last year, but ended up doing a year of ancient history. For his sophomore and junior years, we could still do a full year of geography and perhaps a year of world history, then his senior year could be topical choices. I'm not sure why I'm looking to make this change; it's probably burnout on my part! But I remember taking focused classes (a Civil War class that lasted one semester stands out strongly in my memory) my junior/senior year of high school and finding them engaging. 

Does anyone have curriculum to suggest that could cover either geography at the high school level or specific topics in enough depth for a high school credit?

Thank you!

 

[Lori D.]

We did not do a 4-year chronological history. Instead we did history that DSs requested for the first 2 years (Ancients, and then 20th Century World), and then for the later years of high school they were developing other interests, so we just finished off History with the required American History. So not even 4 years of History, much less chronological. 😉 It was absolutely fine.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Lori D.

[MamaSprout]

My dd tells people we are academic unschoolers, and history is probably where this is most evident (although I put together a lovely 4 year chorological plan that we never used). We did a pretty solid 4-year pass through history in middle school using the History Odyssey books, and then something like this:

Contemporary World History and Geography

Economy, Society, and Public Policy/ Personal Finance

(Next year) World Religions/ Government & Politics ... Both of these courses are around half-way done because of her own self-study. She may take the AP HUG exam because she's covered so much of that on her own.

If she doesn't go away a year early, the next year, she will do DE US History & a Russian history of some sort with By the Onion Sea if Julia offers it.

[Shelly in VA]

11 hours ago, Lori D. said:

20th Century World History

 

5 hours ago, MamaSprout said:

Contemporary World History and Geography

How did you tackle these subjects? Did you have some sort of spine that you used as a guide? With one of my older kids, we tried to pull our own course together to cover European History in high school, but it wasn't a great experience. I want to be more of an academic unschooler than I am, haha, but I'm not very good at it! 😉

[MamaSprout]

44 minutes ago, Shelly in VA said:

 

How did you tackle these subjects? Did you have some sort of spine that you used as a guide? With one of my older kids, we tried to pull our own course together to cover European History in high school, but it wasn't a great experience. I want to be more of an academic unschooler than I am, haha, but I'm not very good at it! 😉

I'll paste our course description below. She's also currently reading a college level world history textbook (it just hangs out on her bed), and loves maps and atlases. MIT had their HSSP online the summer of 2020. That's what the MIT short courses are. You probably could find something on Outschool. We're doing that with World Religions. She did a self-study, but we found a 10-week discussion course next spring to round out the credit.

Contemporary World History

The Human Odyssey: from Modern Times to Our Contemporary Era, (Clee, Cribb, and Holdren)

World Geography 3: Exploring and Mapping the World, (Grant and Jenke) (This is MP's Geography 3 course).

Becoming, (Obama)

Born a Crime, (Noah)

The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World, (Gates)

Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, (Hatfield)

Read My Pins, (Albright)

MIT H14002: Women & Gender: The Modern Middle East, (MIT Education Studies Program short course)

MIT H14012: History of 20th Century Science, (MIT Education Studies Program short course)

This is taught in tandem with World Literature with Analysis course. It is the final course in a four-year, in-depth sequence that covers world history from prehistory to contemporary times. It explores the 20th Century including Asian, African, and Western European civilizations in the areas of politics, economics, science, and cultural development. Term paper and extensive world geography are a part of the course.

ETA- her term paper was 8 pages about Japanese internment camps. 

Edited August 13, 2021 by MamaSprout

[NittanyJen]

I can’t answer your geography question; we covered it embedded with history and lit.

We covered World history in 2 years, did a semester each of US Gov’t and economics, and a free year for them to self-design what to study. One kid chose political science and more Econ at the local U to fill that year; the other is doing an independent study on historical bias that he’s working on designing right now.

 

[Lori D.]

14 hours ago, Lori D. said:

...20th Century World...

 

2 hours ago, Shelly in VA said:

...How did you tackle these subjects? Did you have some sort of spine that you used as a guide? ...

Yes, but I didn't like it much -- we used the last 450 pages or so of Spielvogel's Human Odyssey. [Ug. It gets somewhat socialist-leaning and somewhat negative towards religious faith. It glosses over the atrocities of Hitler and Stalin, making them seem no worse than any other leader from history. 🤮]

We also did a lot of documentaries, feature films about key events, and excerpts from a number of other books/resources. For "output," they each did one research paper on a topic of their choosing during the year, and once every 3 weeks, I had them add to their individual "decade by decade" timeline of key people/events -- they would fill in 10 very short (like, 1-2 sentences) of info about 10 key people/events from that decade of the 20th century. I can't remember if they also did a short oral presentation with slideshow that year, or if it was for American History... (we did this course 12-13 years ago, so it's getting harder to remember details 😉 ).

I would have gladly used a Teaching Company Great Course... but DSs were not really tolerant of those. sigh. It looks like Wonderium puts out a cool series of articles, The Great Courses Daily -- that would have been something I would have used, if it had been around way back then. 

Edited August 13, 2021 by Lori D.

[8filltheheart]

I have never used the 4 yr history cycle with any of my kids.  My kids often don't even have standard history courses.  One of my dd's had Russian history, communism in the 20th century, and French history (studied in French) as history courses.  My current 10th grader is doing a contempory history study covering countries that rarely studied in depth in high school (Haiti, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tibet, the Balkans, the Caucusus, China, and North Korea).  I spent the entire summer previewing/pre-reading books and planning out the study.  It was a ton of work, but it was enjoyable and I learned so much that I did not previously know or understand.   Many of these countries are in the news constantly and yet our family lacked a really in-depth understanding of their histories.

[Shelly in VA]

Thank you all! This is incredibly helpful!

[kristin0713]

On 8/12/2021 at 11:04 PM, Shelly in VA said:

Has anyone covered history at the high school level without following the 4-year cycle?

 

On 8/12/2021 at 11:04 PM, Shelly in VA said:

Does anyone have curriculum to suggest that could cover either geography at the high school level or specific topics in enough depth for a high school credit?

My DD did a World Geography and Cultures class for 9th grade and is doing US history for 10th.  Probably will do government and economics for 11th but it depends where her interests are leaning at that point and how her goals for college develop.  We used Guest Hollow for geography and I very much adapted it to fit her needs/interests.  There is also a new world geography curriculum by Notgrass if you are ok with Christian. 

[Clemsondana]

I don't know anybody who uses a 4 year cycle in high school.  I chose to do a 3 year overview of world history in middle school so that my kids would have some context for whatever we chose in 9-12.  Locally, most umbrellas require 1 credit each of US and World and then 1/2 credit each of econ and gov.  These could be covered however you want, so they could be worked into a cycle if you wanted to do that.  With my older, now in high school, we did gov as DIY at home and econ as an online class.  We're doing US this year at co-op with friends.  We might choose to do world at co-op or DE, or we might choose to do it at home.  We do science and math at home, so kid sometimes likes to do history with friends at co-op.  Possibly for world, but more likely for senior year or as an elective, I've been accumulating a narrative books like Salt or Gunpowder and Steele as an interesting way to look at history. We've been doing 8 credits/year, so kid has room for more electives.  We've pondered doing some semester-long themed history classes.  After reading a book series called 'How to lose a war' (at sea, in the air, etc) kid is intrigued by dumb historical decisions and has in the past expressed interest in a class where we explore the decisions that caused various catastrophes, or looked into unintended consequences (such as some of the consequences of prohibition).  I don't know what all we'll end up doing, but in case you were looking for ideas....

[EKS]

I think that three 4-year cycles is too much.  I prefer to do one year of world and one year of American in high school, and then use the extra time to explore other social science topics.  My younger son ended up doing work in economics, psychology, philosophy (which is more humanities), sociology, and anthropology.  Since he loves the social sciences, it was fun for him.

[Shelly in VA]

6 hours ago, kristin0713 said:

We used Guest Hollow for geography and I very much adapted it to fit her needs/interests.  There is also a new world geography curriculum by Notgrass if you are ok with Christian. 

I was considering Guest Hollow for geography! That looks interesting to me. I like the way they integrate interesting reading into their curriculum. 

[Shelly in VA]

5 hours ago, Clemsondana said:

Possibly for world, but more likely for senior year or as an elective, I've been accumulating a narrative books like Salt or Gunpowder and Steele as an interesting way to look at history. We've been doing 8 credits/year, so kid has room for more electives.  We've pondered doing some semester-long themed history classes.  After reading a book series called 'How to lose a war' (at sea, in the air, etc) kid is intrigued by dumb historical decisions and has in the past expressed interest in a class where we explore the decisions that caused various catastrophes, or looked into unintended consequences (such as some of the consequences of prohibition).  I don't know what all we'll end up doing, but in case you were looking for ideas....

These are great ideas, thank you! I am not familiar with the "How to Lose at..." series, but I think ds would be very interested in something like that. I'll search for those.

[Shelly in VA]

5 hours ago, EKS said:

I think that three 4-year cycles is too much.  I prefer to do one year of world and one year of American in high school, and then use the extra time to explore other social science topics.  My younger son ended up doing work in economics, psychology, philosophy (which is more humanities), sociology, and anthropology.  Since he loves the social sciences, it was fun for him.

That sounds like a good approach. Ds has expressed an interest in economics, psychology, and philosophy, and this past year he watched Crash Course videos as an intro to both economics and philosophy. I had my older kids do a semester of economics in addition to history, but I had not considered covering those social sciences for all of their junior and senior years. Maybe because the others were less interested in those topics. But this might work well for this particular kid. Thank you!

[Shelly in VA]

On 8/13/2021 at 2:52 PM, Lori D. said:

 

Yes, but I didn't like it much -- we used the last 450 pages or so of Spielvogel's Human Odyssey. [Ug. It gets somewhat socialist-leaning and somewhat negative towards religious faith. It glosses over the atrocities of Hitler and Stalin, making them seem no worse than any other leader from history. 🤮]

I would have gladly used a Teaching Company Great Course... but DSs were not really tolerant of those. sigh. It looks like Wonderium puts out a cool series of articles, The Great Courses Daily -- that would have been something I would have used, if it had been around way back then. 

I agree on the Spielvogel - I used it a few years ago with another of my kids, and liked only parts of it.

Thank you for pointing out The Great Courses Daily - I had no idea that was out there! I spent way too much time today looking at various articles there. 🙃

[lewelma]

My younger son has done a very nontraditional history/geography/economics sequence. Here are the 6 credits he has done during highschool:

 

1cr World History - with trade books

1cr Geography - with trade books (Guns, Germs, and Steel + Collapse, NZ Geographic, National Geographic) 

1cr The Social, Economic, and Political Impact of Colonialism on Africa

1cr Physical and Cultural Geography of the Mackinzie Basin, NZ

0.5cr NZ Demographics (comparing the causes and consequences of European vs Māori demographics over 150 years)

0.5cr The Causes and Consequences of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami - (the physics of waves, the immediate response, and the long term social and economic impact. This course also studied how International aid agencies work.)

0.5cr The history of Early NZ 1800-1840 (Pre Treaty of Waitangi -- the founding document of NZ)

0.5cr Māori worldview, values, and protocols. (This is what we are currently studying - also includes some history and language)

Clearly the younger boy preferred deep dives to survey classes. I have absolutely loved following his lead to create classes that  really engage and challenge him. 

[Clemsondana]

11 hours ago, Shelly in VA said:

These are great ideas, thank you! I am not familiar with the "How to Lose at..." series, but I think ds would be very interested in something like that. I'll search for those.

We snagged How to Lose a War at Sea at the museum at Pearl Harbor.  I know there were specific ones for some wars - How to lose WWII.  I don't remember what all there was, but we have 3-4 at least.  They are written for adults but kid read them when younger and I think they learend a ton of history from them.  

[HollyDay]

We did not follow a 4 year cycle in high school.  We did Geography in 8th grade.  This provided the backdrop for many history topics.  9th grade was World History 1, 10th World History 2.  11th grade was US History.  12th grade was econ/gov't and current events.  

 

[Farrar]

Honestly, unless you have a history/social science focused kid or a classics/humanities focused kid, it's a disadvantage to try and do a four year history cycle in high school. Kids have to have a year of US history for many schools, so that's 5 credits in history. Plus, most students are well-served by and interested in a year of government or econ. Psychology is popular too. If you took all of those, that would be 8 credits in the social sciences. For a kid into social science, that's great. For a kid who isn't, that's absurd.

I love the chronological approach to history for elementary school and while we didn't do it in middle school, I think that can work really well too. I think it just doesn't jibe with typical college entrance expectations or typical high school graduation requirements and unless a kid love history or history is really that key to your educational philosophy, then it doesn't make sense to do it.

[Alice]

For my 1st for History: 

9th grade- 20th Century World History

10th grade- Ancients 

11th grade- US Government 

12th grade- Global Perspective Studies (Farrar’s humanities core which we really liked) We did the Year 1 which was Africa/Middle East/India and China/Japan. 

He also did Economics so came away with 5 Social Science credits. 

For my now 10th grader

9th grade- Global Perspective Studies 

10th grade- We are doing American Studies which is self-designed. We’re focusing on the idea “What does it mean to be an American?” and exploring themes like Open Spaces, Freedom/Independence, Equality, “Melting Pot” and The American Dream. 

For us, I ask them what they would be interested in studying or I come up with a few ideas and see what intrigues them most. 

[SilverMoon]

Ancient history can count as their world history. 🙂 

None of my highschoolers did a proper history rotation. When the next schools nearly all expect to see one world, one US history, and one government/economics, the rotation didn't make sense. 

My most recent graduate did history of aviation (world), US history, gov/econ. One of the older ones did a year of ancient world history and medieval world history (because he just really liked them), then a year of US and one of gov/econ. 

 

I used Oak Meadow for a year of high school geography with my now Marine. She really enjoyed it. They may have redone them since then. We had a standard textbook and an OM guide that scheduled the textbook, and gave several options for output at the end of the week. She could choose if she wanted a more creative project or a simple essay.