Ideas for Modern History Spine for High School

I asked a similar question a while back. We tried America: The Last Best Hope Vol. 1 and found it very good, but too hard for us to read. We just couldn’t do it without having to stop VERY frequently to figure things out/explain things. We also tried Joy Hakim’s History of US, but found that a little elementary not interesting enough to counteract that fact. I had thought Stories of America too elementary for my 17 yo son, so we finally decided to go “spineless”. We’re substituting the America: The Story of Us videos and American Experience: The Presidents videos…but they probably don’t amount to a spine. So, we’ll just be using a timeline alongside these and our living books to get the flow of events.

That’s our plan and we’re going with it…however, I’m finding that he is willing to listen in at least sometimes with the little ones to the Storiees of America. So, that may have worked fine…I just wanted to challenge him a little more…but maybe it wasn’t necessary. (We are using SCM Modern Times guide with my substitutions.)