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High School History
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We’re hitting a snag. Again. Always history gets to be a problem when we reach the high school years. Rather, what to use for history is the problem. We’ve used Biblioplan, PAC, HOD younger guides beefed up for high school, & the SCM history modules. Our third DS is currently using MFW Ancients for 9th grade. They just start dragging with getting the days work done. They aren’t finding it engaging. The history is taking too long. etc……The 9th grader just wants to be done a little quicker. He’s got a strong interest in flying planes & is reading books about it & using Xplanes.
In their younger year, all 3 DS loved their history, I know it’s not always going to be fun or even interesting but they would like to be using something that for the most part is tolerable if not enjoyable. They do like to read books but they just don’t want history to be taking up so much of their time. Something simple but not youngish. Is there any such thing??
Hi Becky!
I experienced the same thing in my homeschool. We’ve chosen to just read good history books, one after another, and to narrate and discuss them together. I let me children choose the books they want to read and I just plug the appropriate ones into the fitting credit-American or World History. We’ve tried so many other things but have always come back to this simple method. My kids are engaged and they have enjoyed their history studies using this method.
Right now my daughter is reading George Washington’s World by Foster and next on her list is John Adams and the American Revolution by Catherine Drinker Bowen. The former book is easier reading but is a good overview of the period and can be counted for American and World history. The latter is at a much higher reading level and will help to even out her history studies.
I just have her read for a certain amount of time each day, or a certain number of pages-whichever ones works best. I did the same thing with my son. We turn to Simply Charlotte Mason, Ambleside Online, Beautiful Feet, and favorite publishers to find books that my kids are interested.
I hope others will chime in and share their thoughts so that you can find a good method or curriculum that fits your homeschool! 🙂
My husband and I just finished an hour long conversation hashing this very topic out. 😊 I think I am with Melanie on this one. That’s what seems to work best so far.
Are there any history museums or festivals in your area where you could visit? Or a reenactment? These bring history to life the best and can spark interests in reading on a related history topic. They can also spark a creative interest like sewing a costume from that time period or writing a story in that setting.
We also enjoy watching history documentaries. We recommend Drive Thru History. These are available on DVD or watch for free streaming through iTBN on their website or Roku channel.
I like to use a mix of history books of nonfiction, biographies, and historical fiction. SCM history modules do this too. Good living books help pull the reader into the topic of study. We limit time spent on each day’s history lesson. Can you go by a timed lesson instead of the assignment from the MFW guide? When the timer goes off, put a bookmark there. Allow some time for a narration and pick up where you left off the next day.
This year for 9th grade, we are using the curriculum retrofam mentioned. For Ancient Civilizations and the Bible, there are booklists for each of the nine units to choose books you want to read. We add in the appropriate Drive Thru History DVD for Egypt, Greece, and Rome. There is lots of Bible and archaeology you can study with it. For CM methods, I require a daily oral or written narration from the lesson.
Thanks for your replies! It was good to hear that others have experienced this problem. We’ve talked about just reading books. My son seemed to like the idea. Yet, at the same time, I think we both feel a little at lose ends without a Guide. I don’t do very well with planning when it comes to their schooling :/ It starts feeling overwhelming to even begin to start finding & choosing the books. We looked at History Revealed. It hasn’t seemed to appeal & the boys just don’t care for those CD’s, What In the World…etc. This DS did like the look of the SCM modules, somewhat. He’s not caring for the narrating part. This is my one child who has never found that to be his way of responding to what he’s learned. He’s got such a great memory though that I think it totally overwhelmed him to have to try to condense it down. In his elementary year when I did try narrations, he gave very detailed ones & would write a lot. It was a bit much for him to try to write it all & I was new to the whole narrating thing. Even now, when discussing the option of reading books and narrating them, he asked would it be orally narrating. I would think that we would want written narrations though, to have something to show in case we’d ever need to have proof. ?
I’m also looking at Mystery of History vol 1 . I own it so there wouldn’t be any cost except to maybe get a few books he could read to go along with it. I would want a few to help beef it up I think. It could be a guide, of sorts, IF I could just keep to simplicity with it. He liked the sound of some of the activities…
In high school, I require one writing per day in one subject. The other subjects are oral narrations. So I vary the subjects through the week for the writing focus. My son gives very detailed oral narrations, but less detailed written narrations. Hopefully others will share their experiences with this.
SCM has other ideas for narrations he could use:
https://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/narration/
Certainly MOH could be your guide. We have used the audio to supplement SCM history modules in the past.
In regards to him narrating in great detail, remember that narrations are not all “tell me everything you know.” At the high school level, a narration question can (and should!) have more focus and can be one of four types: narrative, expository, descriptive, or persuasive. Our article Raising the Bar from our Narration Q&A series in our Learning Library will give more details on those four types of narrations.
In the early years of narrating a child is learning how to listen attentively and organize his thoughts, so asking a young student to tell all he knows about a subject gives him practice in remembering as much detail as possible. Older students are learning to take that information and tell it more prescisely.
Here are some sample narration questions/prompts for 0lder students to give you an idea of how a narration can be more focused than just a tell all.
Narration questions for grades 7-12:
- Describe you favorite scene in (literature book read).
- Write twelve lines on (historical person read about).
- Discuss (modern political person’s) scheme. How is it working?
Narration questions for grades 10-12:
- (Quote from historical person read about) Write a short sketch of the character of (historical) person, discussing the above statement.
- Write a letter in the manner of (historical person read about) on any Modern Topic.
- Sketch a scene between a (famous character in literature book read) of today and a neighbor of his.
- Suppose (historical or modern-day person in related event), write his diary for three days.
- Write a letter to (a newspaper) of (a current event or topic studied).
Melanie32 & keriJ, how do you handle the narrations? I know you said narrate and discuss, but could you elaborate on that? With this child we have never gone the narration route( only a trial period in the early elementary years) Yet, reading books is sounding very appealing to him.
We do a mix of oral and written narrations. Right now it is just “tell me about what you read.” We have other writing lessons, so I am ok for now with narrations being simple or even just a summary of what they read. I let them type the narrations.
My daughter does all narrations orally at this point. She prefers to do more essayish type papers for her composition assignments now. I had to have her narrow down her narrations to one or two points of discussion recently as her narrations were nearly as long as her readings! It was just taking too much time. We discuss everything so discussing the books we read is just an extension of that.
When my son was in high school, he preferred writing narrations on his history readings and I required him to choose some kind of theme for his papers and complete one per week, of about a page in length. They were very essayish in nature. He liked IEW style writing so he would come up with an outline on Mondays, write half his paper on Tuesdays, write the other half on Wednesdays, edit it on Thursdays and complete and print the final draft on Fridays.
He narrated from his other readings orally. He wasn’t one for discussing everything like my daughter is, so I would draw him into discussions with questions like: What part did you find most interesting? Why do you think so and so made that choice? Do you agree with his choice? etc.
A good one to look at is carolejoyseid.com. If look under her seminars, seminar II Begin With the End in Mind for $55, she has some very good words of wisdom. Included with the seminar are printouts with wonderful book lists. It is completely literature based, and is very big on a foundation for western civilazation. The books are very good. We are enjoying the reading. Just a recommendation.
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