American History for Homeschooling High School

Last spring Elijah came to me and asked, “Mom, can I study American History next year . . . by field trip?” I love that he asked, and while I wanted to make his wish come true, it simply wasn’t going to be financially feasible for us to spend weeks on the east coast exploring Plymouth Plantation and Colonial Williamsburg. However, we have gobs of field trip opportunities in our state, and I didn’t want to be too quick to dismiss his request.

After some serious conversations with myself, I decided field trips should be part of his class, but I also wanted him to have a teacher. I wanted someone who was as passionate about American history as I am about creative writing.

I started scouring curriculum but couldn’t find what I wanted. Then I stumbled upon Dave Raymond’s American History. I downloaded and previewed the free lessons, and I was sold.

I purchased Dave Raymond’s American History immediately. When it came, I worked my way through the first week’s worth of videos which detailed the class. Elijah and I decided on a schedule which he started at the beginning of July.

Our Schedule with David Raymond’s American History

Days 1-4

• Watches five lectures and takes notes. The lecture is typically 10-15 minutes each day, but Elijah often has to rewind in order to take excellent notes. Elijah finds Mr. Raymond interesting, and he is truly enjoying American History.
• Elijah also spends time each day reading coordinating literature. He will be receiving credit for American History and American Literature.
• Listens to corresponding American History Stories (audio files available for purchase that go with Dave Raymond’s American History)

Day 5

• Completes essay test
• Creates portfolio page for the week

Sample Pages from Elijah’s American History Portfolio

How We Are Tweaking Dave Raymond’s History

I know some strict homeschool mama could get her denim jumper in a knot here just thinking about how much we are omitting from this course, but I do what works for my kids, so that’s what we are doing.

I already mentioned the pieces of the program we are including:

• Lectures
• Essay Tests
• Weekly Portfolio Pages
• Audio Files

We are omitting:

• Daily Assignments
  As I looked through the daily assignments, I felt as if many of them were intense and time consuming. I do not require Elijah to do the assignments. I do, however, keep my eye on the daily assignments and use some of them as discussion points. In lieu of the daily assignments, I organized an American Literature course for Elijah.
• Quarterly Projects
  I am not requiring Elijah to recreate a colonial map or present a costumed speech. We will also skip the research paper, but at the end of the course, he will complete the hour project (as it is right up our interest-led learning alley). He’s already mentioned talking to his pottery teacher about making some Mesoamerican pieces.

We are adding:

• Field Trips!
  We are adding full day field trips to this course. We’ve already experienced amazing days of hands on learning at an Indian Market & Festival as well as visited The Old Fort for a day learning about The French and Indian War. We have eight more field trips planned which will cover The Revolutionary War, The War of 1812, slavery, Andrew Jackson, and The Civil War.

• Studying for the CLEP Test
  I want Elijah to have experience taking CLEP tests. He will begin studying for U.S. History I when he completes this course.

Since we are going off the rails for Dave Raymond’s American History, I decided I needed to estimate how many hours Elijah was spending on this course. This is my rough estimate:

Lectures & Taking Notes = 43 hours
Essay Tests = 26 hours
Portfolio Creation = 26 hours
Field Trips = 50 hours
Hours Project = 10-20 hours
Studying for American History CLEP Test = 5 hours
Final Tally = 160-170 hours

The general idea is 60-90 hours is equivalent to 1 semester of learning. Since I am the teacher, administrator, guidance counselor, and MOM, I have decided the final count is enough to award credit for an entire year of American History.

Determining a Grade for American History

Grade will be based on the following criteria:

• Active Field Trip Participation 20%
• Essay Tests 35%
• Portfolio Pages 35%
• Hours Project 10%

If you need an easy, free gradebook, try this one.