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Can you explain truthquest
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I am very confused as to how to use truthquest. Can someone give me an overview?
It appears to be a jumpstart for the parent. It gives a breif synopsis of a part of history then suggested reading. Sorta like reading the cover jacket of the book so you know what the book is about. In this case, Truthquest lesson guide serves as the cover jacket and then you select what books to read to dive in deeper.
and just what is a “spine”?
A spine is a book that covers many main historical events in one book, generally one chapter describing each event. This is in contrast to a living book on just one topic. Something like Story of The World, or Mystery of History would be considered a spine. Books like Children’s Homer, or specific books on just George Washington or Abe Lincoln would not be a spine.
We’ve used TQ for years. I love the commentary. The first year I tried to wing it by just going through the guide and reading the books we chose. However, I got to the end of the year and was behind in order to finish the guide in a year. The next year I typed out a detailed schedule with books I chose. It went much better but was a lot of work to plan. This year has gone the best ever. I bought the SCM handbook and use that as my base. Many books are listed in TQ. I just penciled in TQ commentary page numbers where they applied in my SCM guide. Easy peasy! HTH some:) Blessings, Gina
It took me forever to understand what a spine was! (The term pops up on more than just Truthquest too) I think of a spine book as an “big picture” book. It is a tree trunk so to speak, covers all the major points or areas of a specific subject. A certain period in history, a persons lifetime, or a science topic. Right now we are using Apologia’s Swimming Creatures like a spine book. At the moment my son is on the shark/ray chapter… Swimming Creatures gives us an overview on sharks and we read a couple additional books that are more indepth or specfic, a book on just great white sharks for example. The additional books let us branch out from our spine book. I could accomplish the same result (ie. him learning about animals that swim) by reading several books about various swimming animals and no spine at all. The reason we are using the Swimming Creatures as a spine is that there are some chapters/topics I want just an overview and others I want to go more in depth. I don’t want to skip learning about mollusks but at the same time, we won’t spend the same amount of time learning about them they way we did with whales. Mollusks will just be the spine book and nothing addtional.
Probably a better anology about a spine book, particuluary for history, is to imagine it as a freeway and other more specific books as backroads. You still end up at the same end location, you just choose which road (or roads) to take in order to get there! Really either way is fine, there are living books that serve as spine books and living books that are more specific. I’ve found personally, that it really boils town to time for me. A spine can be faster. I have used spines by themselves, but most often with other books. If you look at the SCM history guidebooks, they will usually use one of the main family books as a spine, and each age group branches out farther from there with more specific books. The way they have it set up may help the whole idea make sense. I think that’s when I finally “got it!”
Truthquest is a in a way the “dust jacket” as you described it, but it is really more than that. It is like having a tour guide take you through a period of history. The strength of the program, I think, is in Michelle Miller’s commentary. Her purpose is to teach students (and parents) to view all of history not with a human-focus, but with a God-focus. Instead of to learn the story of mankind, to see God’s love for us, to find His truth within history, and to learn what people believed, how they repsonded and how that shaped history. What did people believe about God? And what did they believe about mankind? (She calls these the 2 Big Beliefs.) This is another way to view history, and certainly different from what I learned in public school. You might consider deciding if this approach is one you would like to take for history or not. Certainly history can be learned and discussed, and God’s truth can be found without using Truthquest History. (And it can be found using it too.)
Momto2blessings, so you get the SCM guide and then buy only the TQ manual for that period and then whatever topic/chapter you are covering in SCM you look for the same topic in TQ and add any info from that part of the TQ commentary? Did I understand that right? Is it difficult or a pain? I have tried to join 2 curriculums and the info is basically the same and so I am just repeating or it is difficult to match the topics/chapters.
Thx! Stacey
Well, this year was SUPER simple to combine SCM and TQ. I should qualify that this was probably easier than other historical periods because we’re studying Egypt this year and TQ doesn’t spend much time on Egypt. Since Egyptian commentary in TQ was so little, it only took me like 30 min. to pencil in the page #’s of TQ commentary/Think Write qu.(only 3) and movie selections into my SCM guide. History/Geo/Bible were planned for the year…it was awesome:) So yes, sltress, that’s pretty much how I do it.
We’ve also used AHYS I-III of TQ. I wasn’t combining like this at the time, and this is my first year w/the SCM handbook, but from this exposure it seems easy to mesh the two because the commentaries are different. The SCM handbook is more of a reminder to ask about the previous lesson and narrate the current lesson, w/the occasional extra activity like a character study (in Module 1, anyway…only guide we’ve used). TQ is more of a biblical commentary on who God is and how man responds to Him and the consequences of that. I think there are a lot of curriculums that would be hard to mesh, but since the SCM is more narrating than commentary, I don’t think it’s too much. At least so far…hopefully it won’t get more difficult.
This has worked well for me because I love the TQ commentary, but the huge booklist can be overwhelming to me to try and plan. I love having the SCM handbook to do the planning for me, and it’s easily tweaked as I need to. When we get to h.s., I will probably bring in more of the TQ resources for added depth, but for now it’s going great…has brought peace to our day:) Blessings, Gina
Thanks for explaining how to combine TQ with SCM guides. I LOVE the SCM Guides!! I also have AH I-III that I picked up at a booksale so want to incorporate those when we get to that time in history without having to give up SCM guides!
Tara
Gina, What ages are you combining TQ and SCM with? I love the idea, just wondering if my guys are a bit young. (7 and 5 next year)
Thanks!
Katrina
Gina, that is exactly what I was thinking of doing, so thank you much for sharing your experience. I have 3 highschool students that I am considering using Module 6 and Truthquest Age of Revoltution III with.
We are wrapping up Sonlight American History In Depth. I am looking at bringing us up to the present day and including world history, thus my interest in Module 6 and Age of Revolution.
I think I understand what a spine is. For example a few years back we were reading This Country of Ours and often times I found myself headed to the library to check out any bookof interest on the subject we were reading about. And this year I wasn’t impressed with the quick 2 lessons of the Lewis & Clark Expedetion, so I went to the library and picked up an armload of books on the topic.
“Spine” I think is what I refer to as a “jump-pad”. A book that has good information (is a bit dry, but not too textbooky) sorta of an abstract. If you want to explore more then go for it.
Thanks, Gina. I’m planning on combining Mod5 with AHYS I and II and Mod6 with AHYS III. We shall see … 🙂
Katrina, my kids are 10 and 13. At your kids’ ages I probably wouldn’t be too concerned about adding in TQ yet unless it was your main program. I’d probably just focus on good living books for 2-3 more years. Just me. My son was 8-9 and able to grasp the worldview commentary when we did AHYS. I think younger kids could, too…but not that necessary if you’ll be covering it later. Just my .02:)
Erin.kate, I hope you let us know how it goes! We’re a few years away from that. Are you planning on taking 2 or 3 years to do that? Three years seems so long to spend on American, so I’m hoping we can cover it in two!
KarenB…sounds like a good plan:) I hope you jump back in share how it goes, too! Yep, sounds like you’ve got the spine idea down! We tend to enjoy the extra books more than the spines. TQ actually says you can go ‘spineless’ but I’m a bit hesitant about that, esp. w/aging kids! Blessings, Gina
OK, dare I say it…but… now that I have looked more into TQ I am wondering…maybe I should JUST do TQ and not a SCM module. Eek! Why both? OK someone tell me why I would be crazy to do that. I haven’t used the SCM modules before and was planning that for next year so I only have the samples to go by.
Why both SCM and TQ? Here is my reasoning 🙂
The SCM handbook gives us a day-to-day plan that keeps us on track and in the WORD of God, while the TQ guide gives us extra depth and reading ideas when we want them. I also like the worldview lessons woven into TQ.
Heather
I also was confused about ‘spines’ for a while. I kept wondering why you use an outline/text type book in a living books curriculum. I have come to understand that there are many spines that qualify as living books by themselves, and I also have come to see the benefit of a single author narrating our history events for the year via the spine. It helps to keep our train of thought flowing along through the year. 🙂
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