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time4tea
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| Posted: June 17 2007 at 9:27am | IP Logged
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Hi All,
I need some help in choosing a spine for my 9th grader to use for either World or U.S. History. I was going to use Christ the King, Lord of History for World and Christ and the Americas for U.S., but after reading the first few chapters of CTKLOH, I am feeling exasperated with the author. Not so much her narrative style of writing, which is fine, but she mentions some things as fact that I had understood were still yet to be determined, such as who the Pharaoh was during the Exodus, as just one minor example. Now I am in a quandry - what do I use as a spine for my ds, who will be in 9th grade? I was thinking of using the MODG syllabi - has anyone had experience using the MODG syllabi with these books? Does anyone have a suggestin for another high school level spine that is balanced and enjoyable for a 14 yr. old?
Thanks in advance and God bless!
Tea
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Bridget
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| Posted: June 17 2007 at 9:40am | IP Logged
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M 14 year ds will be using this text supplemented with literature. The History of the Church
I haven't seen the book yet. He will be part of a two day a week tutorial. This is the text they are using.
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Anne Marie M
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The text (The History of the Church) is awesome. I just got it and really like it! I'll be using it with a 12th and a 10th grader. (I think it's recommended for about 11th graders?) Check out the link on the page Bridget referenced to see if it would be a good match for your 9th grader.
Bridget, how wonderful to use it in a tutorial! I've also heard of people using it with Teaching Company sets (Noble's Western Civ and/or his History of the Papacy course).
Anne Marie in NM
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time4tea
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I am looking for a book that could be used as a spine for for credit for High School level World or U.S. History, not Church History per se. Would this book fill the bill? We are already using the Fr. Luax books for Religion, so I don't need another Religion text at this point......
God bless,
Tea
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mariB
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| Posted: June 17 2007 at 8:47pm | IP Logged
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Does it have to be Catholic. A History of US by Joy Hakim is great. All ten volumes---and maybe your library has it and would be able to lend it to you. Ours does and it is in the reference section!
Then for $9.00 you can get the tests for each book from Hewitt and then have him/her read historical fiction following the time period--even the MODG list. That's what we did. My son loved the Hakim books this year!
God bless and I will be praying for you in your decision making!
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Anne Marie M
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| Posted: June 18 2007 at 12:09am | IP Logged
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Tea,
The really neat thing about The History of the Church is that it presents church history in the context of world history. There's really so much that I may consider it a two credit course - church history and world history.
On A History of US - I think I remember a discussion of factual errors in the series - was it here?
Anne Marie in NM
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Bookswithtea
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| Posted: June 18 2007 at 7:45am | IP Logged
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I'm doing US History with my 9th grader this fall. I just finished typing up my syllabus yesterday afternoon.
History texts is a *big fat deal* with me. Its my favorite subject, a hobby with me, I can't stand bias. I also can't find too many texts that I am happy with. 
So here's what I am doing. Christ and the Americas is less biased than than the World history one, imho, once you get past the first few chapters on Cortes. I wrote plans using a format similar to the one in the CHC 7th-8th grade middle school format (I don't always like their weekly topic choices so I changed quite a few). I assigned certain chapters from C and A or I assigned a topic. Each week, ds will begin with C and A. But he is also expected to look up the event/person in Hakim's books and also the Landmark History of the American People. Fwiw, I think Hakim has as many bias problems as the Anne Carrolle books. The Landmark book is the one I am most happy with, bias wise, but its missing some important events and doesn't give enough attention to the 20th century. Come to think of it, I also have From Sea to Shining Sea, which is nice, but completely missing the 20th Century. It would also make a good reference book. Anyway, I've assigned short narrations/summaries weekly to create a history notebook of the events I consider the most important (sometimes I specified the event/person, sometimes I am letting him choose), and we will do a timeline too (using the one in the back of the middle school lesson plans as our cheat sheet  ).
I will probably use this format for world history too, because honestly, there is no such thing as a history text that is not biased, and in most cases, horrendously biased. I'm tentatively planning on having Christ the King Lord of History on hand, along with All Ye Lands (or a later text if they get it written in time as this one is more cultures oriented than history oriented), the Story of the World texts (2, 3, and 4 horrendously biased at times), Our World's Story (oop and good but missing the 20th C) and whatever else I can find.
I am planning on discussing the topics so that I can get the point across to ds that bias is going to be something he always has to weed through, and hopefully to encourage right thinking where C and A or Hakim go wrong.
Hope this helps!
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mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and  due 9/10
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guitarnan
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| Posted: June 18 2007 at 7:46am | IP Logged
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We actually bought a "textbook" spine book...not a Catholic one...for 9th grade world history this year. (It's World History:Perspectives on the Past.) It had its flaws, of course, but we discussed them. It actually gave a reasonable accounting of the Crusades, for example.
We didn't finish the book, so we are finishing it next fall ("Modern World History").
There's no such thing as a perfect history text. History is not objective, when you think about it, because the historian brings his/her perspectives and objectives to the writing process. (My dh is a history major, and I well remember the agonies of his historiography class!)
We did some world literature to go along with this textbook, as well as some research projects and extra discussions on my favorite thing, cultural and intellectual history. (In this regard, our textbook was surprisingly helpful.) Be sure you pre-read the literature, especially the selections in translation...I'm sure you know that already.
I must admit, I took one look at CTKLOH and abandoned the idea. I hope that some enterprising Catholic writers can create some new history resources for us to use. (I've ranted on this topic before, I do believe  .)
We are looking forward to MTF's Church History for next year. I love the Didache series, and so does my son.
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Bridget
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Anne Marie M wrote:
The really neat thing about The History of the Church is that it presents church history in the context of world history. There's really so much that I may consider it a two credit course - church history and world history.
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My son's tutorial will be using this book for the upper middle school and high school students. It could easily cover two years of study.
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StephanieA
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I love history and my kids do too. We have done ABC's of Christian Culture and because there is no "textbook" (read - less biased), it has been by far the best history I've done in 15 years of homeschooling. That said, it is hard to pull off year after year.
NO text is free from bias. Upon numerous recommendations, I checked out Story of the World and Joy Hakim's books. Both of these are so biased as to make Ann Carroll's books look flawless. I read Story of the World (parts of it) aloud to my high schoolers and we had some serious laughs. Susan's attempt at the whole concept is laudable, but her history is terribly flawed in some sections. As an example (I hope I can remember this correctly because I didn't buy the books),
Susan says Henry the 8th had no love for the Catholic Church and agreed so much with Luther than he began his own Church too (per Story of the World) Ummm....no actually, Henry despised Luther's attempt to "reform" the Church so much that he wrote a treatise against Luther and was awarded the title "Defender of the Faith" by the Vatican. This is so well known that I question if Susan did too much research for her books.
Since this is a Charlotte Mason site, let me recommend Albert Marrin's books. I couldn't stomach the Abe Lincoln one (too graphic) or the Francis Drake (for the kids), but I read them. Otherwise, most of his books are rather balanced on a children's level.
For a spine, try "The Human Achievement" by Michael Petrovich. It is about as decent as you can get. I like Ann Carroll's books, but honestly, for high school, she leaves a lot out. I think it is a wonderful supplement for high school.
By the way, I diregarded my mother's advice and took the advice of some of you on the Teaching Company's high school DVDs for history. I think my mother was too critical. We enjoyed them thoroughly.
Are the US ones as good as the world history ones??
Blessings,
Stephanie
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Bookswithtea
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| Posted: June 18 2007 at 3:36pm | IP Logged
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StephanieA wrote:
I love history and my kids do too. We have done ABC's of Christian Culture and because there is no "textbook" (read - less biased), it has been by far the best history I've done in 15 years of homeschooling. That said, it is hard to pull off year after year.
NO text is free from bias. Upon numerous recommendations, I checked out Story of the World and Joy Hakim's books. Both of these are so biased as to make Ann Carroll's books look flawless. I read Story of the World (parts of it) aloud to my high schoolers and we had some serious laughs. Susan's attempt at the whole concept is laudable, but her history is terribly flawed in some sections. As an example (I hope I can remember this correctly because I didn't buy the books),
Susan says Henry the 8th had no love for the Catholic Church and agreed so much with Luther than he began his own Church too (per Story of the World) Ummm....no actually, Henry despised Luther's attempt to "reform" the Church so much that he wrote a treatise against Luther and was awarded the title "Defender of the Faith" by the Vatican. This is so well known that I question if Susan did too much research for her books.
Since this is a Charlotte Mason site, let me recommend Albert Marrin's books.
...took the advice of some of you on the Teaching Company's high school DVDs for history.
Are the US ones as good as the world history ones??
Blessings,
Stephanie |
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I have heard great things about the Marrin books!
The Landmark History of the American People is very balanced, imho. Great for Jr. high level, but missing a lot. I bet Marrin's books would make a fine addition.
I haven't seen the Teaching Co. DVD's for history, but I've heard good things about the US History (Lin Thompson one) from Catholic moms.
SWB got so many things wrong in SOTW II I had to use other books for entire chapters in history. She also defined pilgrimmage and relics completely wrong and had the nerve to suggest that being an "open minded Renaissance man" meant not listening to your priest but going to the bible for yourself!!! I'd be  if the thought of it weren't so  ridiculous!
I see the benefits of going textless, but I don't think I could pull it off year after year (too many littles in the mix), so we limp along with lots of additions and discussion, making the best of it. I'm hoping that at the very least, my kids will never completely trust a textbook! 
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mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and due 9/10
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ALmom
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We could do a study of textbooks based on the textbooks on our shelves. We use them as quick look ups and sometimes to compare them with each other - but never seem to stick with any. One thing fun to do is to pick books written in different time periods about the same topic. It is a hoot. Personally, I prefer older textbooks. I don't know if it is that they are more straight forward or if it is simply that I know the time period and recognize and can handle the biases eaiser. They certainly are not as blatant as some of the sweeping statements I've seen in modern history texts.
There is a decent secular textbook that Kolbe used for a while Quest for A Hemisphere (c 1970) that we used for American History. I'd have a secular textbook on hand even if you use Ann Carrols as she tends to ignore the entire westward expansion (importance of the railroads, etc. and very, very little on American Indians, immigration or some of the labor relations issues. After 10th grade Seton history, both my dd and I had had all we could take of Ann Carrol, which is how we found the Quest of the Hemisphere. Of course, here I am using it CTKLOH again in World History for my 7th grade son. I know we will be using plenty of other sources, including a secular World History (c in the 1970s) where we can compare their take on some of the controversial issues) - and reading lots of real books. I will say that if you use Ann Carrol, you'll need something else to sort out the sequence of the French Revolution. Anne Carrol doesn't always do a great job with chronology and can tend to jump back and forth a bit which is confusing if you don't have the sequence from somewhere else. We bought a used, older secular history to compare with CTKLOH when we did it and that helped some. We will be filling in loads of detail from other sources and using it as simply the barest of spines.
I also loved ABCs of Christian Culture and it works wonderfully for a while. I use it now as supplemental to whatever else we do. I have found RC History to be my current favorite - but, it again, relies primarily on other sources and only occassionally uses textbooks. It seems less mom intense than ABCs. That is real history, though. Historians are not likely to rely on a history textbook for anything.
If you have the opportunity to take a good historography course with you dc, it is worth it. I made my oldest do this her senior year in high school, before going off to college. We audited a course with a professor I knew and I took it with her. (We wanted to duel enroll but the course was offered at a college that only went for the last 2 years of undergraduate, but the prof suggested that we audit and that this particular course would not be a problem for dd). She said she got the lecture twice - once in class and once from mom in the car on the way home . I loved the course, my dd didn't like it as much (she is not a history fan) but she did learn plenty.
Janet
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Barb.b
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Hi,
I just had a chance to look at this topic! I have been thinking of using the Anne Carrole books next year and the year after for 10th and 11th grade. Honestly I haven't looked much into either one yet - anyway - I am really interested in your opinions on how she is biased. I haven't read either book yet.
Also, I finally decided for 9th grade my ds would read historical novels and we would discuss. He has done history texts yearly and could use a break. At least that gives me one year to decide the last three years of high school history  !
Barb
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ALmom
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| Posted: June 25 2007 at 7:16pm | IP Logged
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First, let me caveat that I am particularly harsh on textbooks. I don't know that I could say that Ann Carroll's texts had any outright errors, but there is a lot she left out and in the leaving out, there are some real distortions. The tone was more triumphalistic than historical and sometimes in trying to be conversational, there were some pretty sweeping claims.
Whenever there were controversial issues, she tended to glorify or justify the Catholics and demonize the non-Catholics. I would not necessarily argue completely with her conclusions, but when our dc found controversial issues, there wasn't enough specific mention made of events, evidence, etc. to feel like she was facing the criticism with a historians precision. Perhaps she had the evidence, she simply doesn't present it. The book is her sweeping conclusions one after another. The tone was very triumphalistic and read after being immmersed in secular biases, it might serve the purpose of opening up some questions about those conclusions, but she doesn't do a good job in defending her points, imho. For a homeschooler that has been presented with a true appreciation of Catholic contributions, this came across like a blind attempt at brainwashing.
Here is one example:
In a section on the Spanish Inquisition, she states, "The actions of the Inquisitors are often criticized, usually as a means of attacking Spain by those who resent the strong Catholic character of the country. (She could cite specifics here, I'm sure, but she doesn't so we are left with a sweeping generalizaion concerning motives with no evidence - bad history) One criticism is that the Inquisitors used torture. It did, though less so under Torquemada than before him. Torture is wrong and the church has since condemned any use of torture. But at the time, all governments used torture as a means of extracting confessions. Though the fact that a sin is routinely committed does not justify it, the Inquisitors were most probably acting in good faith, (could she name some specific inquisitors here and address the evidence - cite some letters, correspondence, specific places where inquisitors stepped in to defend those being slandered - Characters of the Inquisition addresses this much better giving examples to include saints and sinners) and they should not be singled out as unusually evil."
Now, earlier she had spoken about what a good Catholic Isabella was (nothing was said about exactly what made her a good Catholic), the need for Spain to weed out the false converts from the true, the Pope's stepping in to curb abuses in the Inquisition (a specific correspondence could be cited here as well as the appointment of a Saint to straighten the mess out). Each of these got a sentence. Nothing was said about the accusations that Catholic Spain drove out the Jews (this leaves the impression that there was no discrimination against Jews who remained Jews and didn't pretend to be Catholics), no specific evidence was sited for what makes her conclude that the Inquisitors were acting in good faith (this implies all inquisitors, but there were some scoundrels as well as saints in the bunch). My dd reaction was very angry - and she took this section to be another version of "Gee everybody is doing it so it isn't so bad." I think it would have been much more honest to state clearly those things that invovled individual Catholics not acting as they should and the impact this had on future developments, while still pointing out the many positives and the legitimate need of an inquisition.
There is a similar type of incident in the period dealing with the Protestant revolt:
"Every other monarch in Europe at this time - Francis I, Henry VIII, even the Pope - had selfish goals. Charles alone fought for the ideal of a united Christendom. He was not totally successful, but without him the Protestants and the Turks would almost certainly have overwhelmed Europe." This is, in fairness, a conclusion after discussing some of these characters, but, imo, far too sweeping trying to place good-guy, bad-guy labels rather than analyze the specific actions. She also presumes to know motives of people, yet there isn't a lot cited to say where these presumptions come from. Is there some correspondence between leaders that reveals this or is this simply her imposing her simplistic analysis of the times onto these people?
She also does a comparison between Elizabeth of England and Mary, Queen of Scotts which typically reverses the general presentation given. Instead of Elizabeth being "good Queen Bess", Mary is the real good guy and Elizabeth is the real one with blood on her hands. Ie Elizabeth is the butcher and Mary is a poor, persecuted and betrayed Catholic. I'm not saying that it isn't important to point out that some of the typical presentations have their own bias against Mary and for Elizabeth, but it would be fairer to discuss the strengths, weaknesses of both and the bitter religious wars going on that colored how things were presented. Both executed those of opposite faiths and there was a religious and poliitical element in all of this that only specific evidence related to specific executions can really sort out. It is unfair not to mention the gunpowder plot and its potential influence on Elizabeth and also the Papal pronouncement relieving English Catholics of loyalty to the crown. This does complicate things a bit, though looking at specific executions, you certainly see martyrs. It is also fair to conclude that the gunpowder plot was staged by the government as a means of justification for executing Catholics, but you must be fair in citing the other sides arguements concerning the evidence as well as this is an area where the evidence could be interpreted in more than one way unless a historian unearths missing evidence. I'm not saying that I don't agree that Mary got a bum rap in history books, in general, just that sweeping statemenst as those made in the CTKLOH don't really help.
Ann Carrol makes a statement as if it were an historically proven fact that Mary had nothing to do with the murder plot of Darnley. As far as I know the evidence was highly circumstantial and there was not sufficient evidence against her, but that is different than implying that it is certain that she had nothing to do with it. The politics of the time would certainly imply that there were plenty of reasons for her opponents to make her look bad and to jump to unjust conclusions and it is fair for a historian to say that they conclude that she had nothing to do with it based on these things while still honestly acknowledging that historians differ in their opinion here. The statement as Ann Carrol makes it is a bit too sweeping.
In discussions about the Netherlands, she talks about the Protestant nobles being against Philip for religious reasons and the desire for political control and the control of the wealth. She then launches into a lengthy discussion of the sacking and desecration of Catholic churches in the Netherlands. There is mention of the execution of those who had participated in these outrages. She states, "The Calvinists named these proceedings the Council of Blood, but the Calvinists had been the first to shed blood, and none was executed but those found guilty of the highest crimes. The Calvinists frequently published imaginary attrocities supposedly committed by the Spanish in order to make it appear as if Protestants were persecuted." Now, there is no evidence, no statement of specific accusations that are countered. I'm not saying these don't exist (personally, I don't know) but if you are going to make that kind of claim, then you must cite specific examples of this. Nothing is mentioned of any of the excesses of zeal that led some Catholics to violence. Historians are generally in agreement that the period of the religious wars was a period of outrageous behavior from both sides. Certainly, there are notable exceptions such as those saints whose behavior stands out against the tide. It would be much more helpful to speculate about what might have happened if everyone imitated these saints rather than embracing the spirit of that age. It might also be helpful to point out the impact this unchristian behavior had on later acceptance/rejection of Christianity. A historian could certainly build a case for the grave scandal these behaviors had and the guilt we share here.
This triumphalistic/basically defensive sense is the tone of the book and my oldest dd reaction to it was wondering what Ann Carrol was trying to hide. I'm not saying she was trying to hide anything, simply that the tone of the book really backfired and put doubt about everything Ann Carrol said. This book might have thrown dd to accept the twisted secular histories that imply that Catholics are evil personified and the main persecutors and without freeing ourselves from the yolk of this, we could not make scientific advances, etc. in an angry reaction to the bias. I know I liked reading Ann Carrol because of my anger at secular textbooks for the bias in those books even though she really wasn't much different than the secular bias I had grown up on.
Anyways, we had to find a better balance than this, but truthfully there isn't a textbook that does this really, really well. Partially this is a limit of textbooks, as they generally try to cover such a long sweep of history that you cannot give every detail and have to choose. It is not good history for a historian or textbook writer to chose information solely based on their own take of things. A historian is especially expected to face the evidence against them head on and justify why their conclusion is still the correct one. A textbook would, it seems, have to at least address those things that are accepted by the majority of historians and not leave these out, while they may want to argue or present their own conclusions on controversial issues, they should not exclude evidence against their conclusions.
To give Ann Carrol credit, in her introduction, she honestly states her point of view. I just don't think she is all that successful at defending her conclusions, though for the most part, I would agree with her underlying complaint that Catholics are generally not given a fair presentation in history texts. We are using it with modifications, lots of real books and taking it slowly and reading from many sources to find evidence for or against statements made, etc. and making sure we cover those basic areas of agreement and the incidents where Catholic individuals are not in the best light. I will certainly compare statements by secular textbooks and Ann Carrol, while reading biographies and more in depth information from a more scholarly perspective.
One thing I wish they'd make textbook publishers do is footnote the source, then if it was controversial or we were uncertain, we could look up their source and see if we agreed to their conclusions or not. It is far too easy to make bogus claims to authority by citing some unidentified source - that should be a huge warning bell.
I will say that our historiography prof had scathing criticisms of History of US and I must agree with him from the quotes he gave from the text to defend his point. There were just as many sweeping comments in there. Everything good about pagan cultures was trumpeted, but no mention as to the fact of human sacrifice, etc. They also tended to make sweeping statements about the intent and motives or blame Columbus for slavery in the new world, etc. Not much different than my criticisms of Ann Carrols book.
So while, Ann Carrols book is far from good, I have yet to be convinced that there is a textbook that is much better. We use it as a teaching opportunity of how not to write history essays. I want three specific examples for every claim made about why or conclusions about the events. When Ann Carrol makes a claim, we try to find evidence for or against her claim and then discuss what we really think happened. I also expect my dc to look honestly at the warts as well as the glories.
I hope I have not been overly harsh here, as I do tend to rip textbooks in history pretty viciously. I hope this helped with some specifics and yet, I don't want to imply that I think that even the secular texts we have used alongside it are ideal. One thing it helped us with is to prove to our dd that Ann Carrol was speaking correctly when we could show the same thing said in a text with an opposite bias. Where these texts disagreed, required further digging on our part to unearth the truth as best we could. I don't want to discourage the use of CTKLOH, but do caution that it must be balanced with other sources.
CTKLOH is certainly not dull, which is another problem that generally plagues textbooks. IT tends to read like a conversation and can be a fun quick read and discussion starter.
Janet
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StephanieA
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This is the problem. Textbooks HAVE to condense the material. Grade school texts are the worst and I think Ann Carroll's book work best in 7 and 8th grades. We use CTKLOH, but in 6-8th grades and read sections, then do our own reading of "living books".
For example, one of the reasons Isabella dispelled the Jews was because SOME of them falsely converted to Catholicism, but still clung to their original Jewish faith. Doesn't sound terribly terrible, BUT they were being put in positions in the government where they would make decisions based on their original faith. Isabella wanted to establish Christendom - a country devoted and living to Catholic principles, basically living out the Catholic faith in all aspects of the lives of her citizens.
It would be somewhat equivalent for us if atheism to take over in the US and no longer allow us Sunday off for worship and making laws against the faith we were trying to live out in our daily lives. It is sort of warped example, because our country is not based on a religion, so one must get into the mindset of the times. The problem is that Isabella dispelled ALL the Jews which hurt Spain intellectually and economically to some extend, and it wasn't really a "nice" thing to do. Ann Caroll doesn't explain all this which leaves a feeling of "uh?" there.
My second son especially didn't like Ann Carroll, but it was interesting to debate issues with him after he read other sources. Then the picture was a little clearer and some misconceptions cleared up.
I'm with Janet. Ann Carroll isn't perfect, but she's included in our homeschool.
Blessings,
Stephanie
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Elizabeth
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| Posted: June 26 2007 at 8:20am | IP Logged
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does anybody have an opinion on The American Pageant?. This is the text we used in AP History when I was in high school. (This is, of course, an updated version to include the twenty+ years since i graduated.) Since I haven't read it since I was 16, I hesitate to give any opinion at all. But, I had no trouble remembering both title and author and I remembering liking the book. So, with that to go on, can anybody speak for its scholarship?
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Anne Marie M
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Elizabeth,
I used it in high school, too. I've heard it's a reliable text for AP prep, but I haven't used it with my own kids.
I enjoyed meeting you in Denver!
Anne Marie in NM
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Barb.b
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I still need to read all the responses here! I find history the most difficult subject to choose what to use and to plan for. I find it very difficult to know what to pair Christ the King, Lord of Histoy with to make it a ballanced study for my ds. Not to be too lazy but does anyone know if any supplier's lesson plans do this well - pair CKLOH with other books to create a ballance? Sorry for the continuing questions -history seems overwhelming!
Barb
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Bookswithtea
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StephanieA wrote:
This is the problem. Textbooks HAVE to condense the material. Grade school texts are the worst and I think Ann Carroll's book work best in 7 and 8th grades. We use CTKLOH, but in 6-8th grades and read sections, then do our own reading of "living books".
For example, one of the reasons Isabella dispelled the Jews was because SOME of them falsely converted to Catholicism, but still clung to their original Jewish faith. Doesn't sound terribly terrible, BUT they were being put in positions in the government where they would make decisions based on their original faith. Isabella wanted to establish Christendom - a country devoted and living to Catholic principles, basically living out the Catholic faith in all aspects of the lives of her citizens.
My second son especially didn't like Ann Carroll, but it was interesting to debate issues with him after he read other sources. Then the picture was a little clearer and some misconceptions cleared up.
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AC's books are definitely biased and definitely are missing back up. They are too condensed...no doubt about it.
Still, I'm with Stephanie in that I think they can still have a place in our homeschools. They do dispel some of the biases inherent in secular and protestant texts. On their own, they present a skewed interpretation of history that is triumphalist. But in conjunction with other texts and books, they can work quite well. At the high school level, I think its good for students to know that all history is subject to interpretation and that we don't need to take any one author's viewpoint as gospel.
Any standard secular or protestant world history text could be used alongside it. They will balance each other out. I like SL's catalogue for living literature to go along with at the high school age.
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Blessings,
~Books
mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and due 9/10
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StephanieA
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Dear Elizabeth,
I have used American Pageant for my first two sons and will use it again next year for number 3. We use it in high school 9th or 10th grade. By this time we've been through Ann Carroll's books and some Puritan Progress (although different topics are studied with different kids - got to keep MY interest level up there
I can't speak to the absolute scholarship of the text and I have whited out some sections that I didn't want the kids reading. But overall, the text is a good read.
We use it to prepare them for American History Cleps since the boys attend a local state university where history is BIASED  - and not from the Catholic side
Blessings,
Stephanie
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4Real Forums : High School Years and Beyond
Topic: Help! Need advice on a History text
