US History

[macfey]

This is the proposed American History Outline for 6th / 10th grade homeschooled History (we don't use many preestablished lesson plans) If any one has any ideas on how to present any portions of these lessons or what key points should be emphasised please feel free to post below. I'm looking forward to your input. Also, books to read on the

Comments

[rarelytame]

I'm very impressed with how thorough this appears to be. Very nice. I had mentioned to you somewhere else how important that I felt The Grapes of Wrath was to a literature class. I think here is an appropriate place for me to mention that if you are integrating your history and lit in any way (or even if you're not), that I think reading The Grapes of Wrath just before or so that it slightly overlaps the history section on immigration -thru- the great depression, would be excellent. I have a good memory for tying my classes together, but somehow many kids in my classes never made the connection that The Grapes of Wrath, however fictional, was a representation of history.

[shanrina]

This is really thorough and well done. One question: do the lessons have to be grouped in threes? If not, the flow seems a little off toward the beginning...to go from westward expansion to slavery and sectionalism, then back to the war with Mexico and some of the other things you've included in that lesson seems a little off...maybe switch 7 and 8 and put the new 7 in with the previous lesson if they don't have to be in threes? I remember there were a couple times in US History when we stopped going chronologically for a bit and covered one time period in several ways, and I'm almost positive that westward expansion was one of those times.

As for books (mostly for the older end of the age group)--my teacher had us reading excerpts from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States (personally, I like him but he's rather extreme so I'm not sure if you'd want to use him). I also remember having to read Gore Vidal's Lincoln the summer between 8th and 9th grade. I was in a humanities magnet program, though, so I'm not sure if