Overview: Beautiful Feet's modern history
(Note: I received compensation for this review but all opinions are my own. This post does contain affiliate links.)
Modern history is a subject that is woefully lacking in resources in the homeschool world. I know because I tried to find one when daughter #2 wanted to learn about World War 2. There wasn’t anything out there, and I sure didn’t want to create a lazy busy ladies out there? LOL.)
That was lotsa years ago, though, and thankfully now there is a new option on the scene. It's a literature-based high school course from Beautiful Feet called Modern U.S. and World History (referral link).
I have always loved the IDEA of literature-based history courses but have not used them much. Expense has always been an issue (can you say “lotsa
At one time we did use Beautiful Feet’s History of Science course (referral link), reading stories about inventions and biographies of famous scientists and adding their cut-out heads to our timeline. In the elementary years, this was great.
But I haven’t looked seriously at literature-based history since starting high school.
I like things laid out very specifically, y’all. I don’t want a lot of teacher prep. And my ideal for high school is a
So when the opportunity arose to review Beautiful Feet’s modern history
We received a partial selection of the materials for this course, enough to do slightly less than the second semester’s worth, including World War 2 through the early 21st century. The full course covers from 1850 on and is a year long. It claims to be good for a history credit AND a literature credit—and based on the depth and type of questions/assignments and the amount of writing involved, I think this is a fair assessment.
The course is specified to be best for use in grades 11-12, and due to the seriousness of the subject matter, I would agree. Also, the assignments are geared towards a higher level of thinking.
As explained in the study guide, “These questions focus on developing students’ abilities to think critically about the literature. This guide directs students not simply with comprehension questions, but rather, with Socratic questioning, which fosters the exploration of complex ideas and concepts that pertain to the larger themes covered in this study. This method will help to expose students to alternative perspectives, challenge students’ assumptions, and sharpen students’ abilities to use evidence to defend their viewpoints.”
Check out Beautiful Feet's website by clicking here: BFBooks.com
A literature-based modern history curriculum planned for you
The structure for the course is provided by the study guide, and this is where the beautiful-ness (ha! see what I did there?) comes in, in my opinion. This study guide is well laid-out and thorough, and—always a plus in my book—the student will be able to follow it without guidance. You won’t have to tell them how much to read each day or what to do; each literature book is already divided into lessons that tell what pages/chapters to read, provide vocabulary study and comprehension questions, discuss literary concepts, list related resources/links, and assign writing topics for short essays or longer reports.
Scheduling is defined loosely as 7 lessons per every two weeks, but this is obviously adaptable. It is not necessary to do every assignment or answer every question, and this is where you might want to use some oversight to scale the workload to your teen’s time and comfort level.
A full answer key is provided in the back, although not all questions or assignments will have definitive answers, so mom must use some wisdom and discernment while checking work. This would be the only shortcoming to the
But the content and depth and planned-out structure of the course outweigh this concern for me. After all, it would just be a matter of sitting down to decide ahead of time how to structure the grading. I’ve done that before, and I will do it again, because I think this modern history
Beautiful Feet has been around for 30 years, so they must be doing something right. Frankly, I think they're doing A LOT right.
What makes Beautiful Feet's modern history curriculum worthwhile?
1) Anything literature-based is bound to be more interesting than a textbook or workbook.
I love to read, and so do all of my kids. In this course there is a nice blend of factual
2) This course has lotsa opportunities for writing.
I think writing is one of the most important things to concentrate on during the high school years. I say just get them to write, and write, and write. It doesn’t have to be monumental stuff but rather a paragraph here and an essay there—and the more they do it, they more comfortable they become.
OR you can use some of the writing assignments as springboard for discussion, instead. Either way, the teen is communicating in words about what they’ve learned. This is huge.
3) I love all the questions that promote analytical thinking.
This is not just a “what did you read”
4) This time period, as I’ve mentioned before, is often left out or is not covered sufficiently.
I love that this course provides an opportunity to explore the more modern episodes in history, which are rapidly becoming the distant past. We can learn much from studying these. Our teens, especially, NEED to study these. This world is becoming a much more complicated place, and it is modern events and themes that are driving society's current trends. I can imagine really impactful discussions arising from the readings and the events of this time period.
5) The curriculum is super flexible.
Do what you think is important; leave out what you think is not. Spend time exploring the gazillions of extra resources that are suggested. Or don’t. It’s up to you and your teen to determine how in-depth you want to pursue any particular area of study, so you can concentrate on their interests and maybe tread more lightly over the epochs/events that they find less exciting.
This is über helpful when trying to keep the teen mind motivated to work; am I right?
6) It's affordable.
You know price is important to me, and I'm happy to say that I think the cost of this modern history
Also, one thing that makes Beautiful Feet unique (at least as far as I've seen) is that you can arrange to buy only the
Go to the website now to browse all of their options! You just might find something that's a perfect fit!
Ann has written Cure the Fear of Homeschooling High School: A Step-by-Step Manual for Research and Planning, Save Your Sanity While Homeschooling High School: Practical Principles for a Firm Foundation, and recently Taming the Transcript: The Essential Guide to Creating Your Teen's Homeschool Transcript from Scratch (without overwhelm). She also founded the popular Facebook groups It's Not that Hard to Homeschool High School and It's Not Hard to Homeschool K-8, and in addition she voices the It's Not That Hard to Homeschool High School Podcast.
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I’m excited about the giveaway!
Thanks for the review! I am looking at Early America and World History (High School) BFB for my soon to by 13 year old sons to do for “8th grade”. We used BFB Medieval History – at two levels – Junior and Senior High this current school year. I really liked the map work that was incorporated, and my younger boys read some of the High School level novels for pleasure. They really learned a lot and it dovetailed really nicely for my older son (15) to take a dual enrollment “Modern” World History class at University this Summer.
Woot! I’m glad you liked Beautiful Feet! :-)
I will definitely consider this for the future, but I’m searching your site for suggestions in middle school and lower high school history curriculum. Thanks for any suggestions!
Hi Tara, I haven’t done many (any?) reviews for the ages you are describing, but in the summer I will have one about a Sonlight program that’s good for all ages. Unfortunately that doesn’t help you right now… but thanks for stopping by! :-)
Whats the difference between this and Notgrass history. Looking into other options as 7th grade Abeka is so much info, but too intense anymore. Wanting to challenge, but not make him feel inadequate. Would appreciate input on Highschool option that encourage independent learning and are engaging, but not time consuming. Thanks Tiffany
My homeschool is mainly literature-based and this is my one burning question for homeshooling high school. I met you at the GHC in St Charles a couple weeks ago and you are awesome! I purchased your books and am so glad I did – I’m feeling so confident about homeschooling the high school years now and I have a plan of action. My remaining question though is regarding giving applicable credits when I integrate subjects through literature. I believe in teaching most subjects through literature as it gives a more genuine, truthful, and interesting education IMHO :). I guess I was hoping for some information/guidance on this, since I think this kind of education is making a comeback in the homeschool community. Do you have any words of wisdom in this area? I do plan on assigning multiple credits across subjects but I guess I would feel a little more confident in it if I had some outside guidance on it. I certainly want to be as truthful as possible on my kids’ transcripts. Thank you for any help or direction you could give!
Hi Christina, thanks for your encouraging words! I’m glad I could help! When doing unit studies such as you are describing, I think you can use the time spent to determine the amount of credit to grant. This is discussed in the Cure the Fear book, but in your case you would log how many hours were spent on English assignments vs. History assignments, etc. If you’re using a curriculum, then perhaps email or call the creator to see if they have guidance here. Also, in my own experience I’ve found that any curriculum will work best as a spine for one subject, and any other subjects that are integrated are more supplemental, and therefore perhaps not worth full credit — but they can be part of the credit as you also use other materials to round out the credit in that subject area. (So in the case of the Beautiful Feet being reviewed here, it’s mostly a history credit, and anything else would be more partial credit that must be added to.) If you are creating your own studies, then just be sure to add enough work to accommodate for enough time for the amount of credit you want to grant. Hope this helps. Feel free to email me if you have further questions. :-)