Monday, August 03, 2015

U.S. and World History Update!!


As we draw closer to completing the brand-new US and World Modern History Study Guide, we wanted to keep you up-to-date and give some details about the study.
This one year adventure will cover 1850 to 2002 and while the book list will feature some of the same titles we had in our previous study, it will also include seven brand-new titles like best-sellers Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and A History of the Twentieth Century by Martin Gilbert. Gilbert's work will provide a spine for the course as it covers the most dense period, 1900-1999, and will provide much-needed background information on the inevitable gaps between the literature.

As you all know we are completely rewriting this high school study guide. One of the suggestions we heard
frequently concerning the old guide was the lack of study notes and corresponding answer key for several of the books. We heard you loud and clear! This new edition features comprehensive study notes and discussion questions, vocabulary, web links, and answer key for each title. Also, the new study is truly "modern" as it goes far beyond the Vietnam War, where the old one ended. By popular demand we have also included a literary analysis section for a handful of the classic literature choices which will assist students to learn and understand the literary devices used by renowned authors like Harper Lee, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Stephen Crane, and others.
A new area of focus in the study is the emphasis on improving the student's critical thinking and writing skills. Both of these are reinforced through practice. Instead of providing simple comprehension questions, the study notes will help students analyze and process information in order to develop their own opinion, and defend it. The writing assignments will also augment this by instructing students to choose one side of an issue and support their stance with evidence.
The new US and World Modern History Pack is currently available!!! If you purchase the pack we will send you the
books now and then email you the download version of the Study Guide by the end of August and mail you the print version in September. On the above page you can see the final book list and a description of the study.
As the reading level, content, and emphasis on writing have all increased we will recommend this study for 11th and 12th grade students.
Check out the sample pages below! Click on thumbnail to zoom in. 
We have so enjoyed creating this study. It is an amazing time period and we believe this course represents it well. If you are looking for a comprehensive history and literature study on the modern time period we wholeheartedly believe this is the best literature-based study you will find. 
Thank you for your interest and patience!

 


Our new 2015-2016 catalog is now available! If you want to view it right now it's available online here. And if you would like to request a hardcopy, click here.

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8 comments:

  1. This sounds fantastic! Wonderful improvements. I'm looking forward to using it next year with my daughter.

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    1. Thank you Samantha! Can't wait to hear what you think as you're using it.

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  2. Thanks so much for this update! What if my children have yet to do Early American History. What guide would you recommend? This specific request is for my 11th grade daughter who still needs the credit. I would also like my 9th grade daughter to join in Early American, possibly with your Early American for 9th grade. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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    1. Hi Jackie, The only Early American guide that we have for 9th grade is our Early American and World study and that would definitely count for 9th grade American history. Depending on what your 11th grader wants to do, you could have her do an accelerated version of the Early American and World as that would link up quite well with the new guide above. To do that, I would just recommend going through the Early American and World History starting with The World of Captain John Smith (have your 11th grader skip The World of Columbus and Sons). She could just read through the books to get the information and skip the writing assignments to allow for speed. Does that make sense?

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  3. Ugh! I JUST bought this study guide LAST school YEAR!! Can we get an update?

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    1. Hi! So sorry for the disappointment of purchasing a guide just to have it update a year later. We offer discounted updated version to customers who have purchased the original guides directly from BFB. Just give us a call at 800.889.1978 and ask about our upgrades. Thanks!

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