Any Canadian's studying Cdn History at the highschool level?

[Heather in Savannah]

Because we are Canadian's in the USA, I feel it is important that my children understand the history of their country of origin. I am looking for highschool level material, but am having a difficult time finding it. My neice is in 10th grade and she is studying Cdn History form WWI on, in her Ontario highschool, so I suspect that the only texts available at the highschool level just cover that period. I'd love to hear from anyone who is planning Cdn history at the highschool level....any virtual classes(my preference)?

[Ruth in Canada]

We did Canadian history in grades 7 and 8 using Janet Lunn's "The Story of Canada" as a spine. We added in Canadian historical fiction for each period.

This book would be a little simple for an older high schooler, but it is comprehensive in scope and very accessible. If you don't get any better ideas, you could use it as a launching pad for independent research projects.

Grade 10 Canadian history is required in Ontario. Here's a link to the approved text books: http://www.curriculum.org/occ/trillium/resources/Canadian_and_World_Studies_10.shtml#CHC2D I don't know anything about these.

[Marilyn In Winnipeg]

We also use Janet Lunn's book, as well as the CBC video series Canada: A People's History, which is very good.

Marilyn

[Ruth in Canada]

but it might be hard to get in the States. It's quite easy to get from the library here. It would be over $500 to purchase. There are two books that follow the series, however--I wonder if they would be helpful (and possibly available through interlibrary loan for review.) There's also a nice website about the series, which includes information for teachers.

[Heather in Savannah]

I have searched the inter-library system here in Georgia and can't find Canada: A people's history....or anything remotely classified as Cdn history. I used to work in a Library in Ontario, and I can actually see in my minds eye, the exact place on the shelf the video series is sitting...sigh...I have been searching the different Cdn textbook publishers, but it appears that in Ontario the highschoolers only study Cdn history from WWI on during their highschool years. What a shame, as it is only at the highschool levels that children really have the ability to think through the deeper "why's" behind the settling of Canada, the building of a country, BNA act, etc.
Thanks ladies for your suggestions.

[st_claire]

A people's history seems good. Some of the textbooks on that site only cover modern history, which I think is only a small part of Canada's history. I hate when a "history" course misses so much history lol. Make sure you include native people's contributions.

[Ruth in Canada]

Even more alarming--the "Canadian history from WWI on" course is the only required history course in Ontario! So much for raising our children to be world citizens.

I don't think you'll be unhappy with "Story of Canada"--even if it's only something you use as a family reference.

If your kids are strong readers, you could have them read Pierre Burton's books! I didn't think I could ask that of grade 7 and 8 kids--but we'll do it when we circle back to more recent history in high school. Catherine Parr Trail's books about frontier life are also interesting--but intense.

Amazon.com has quite a collection of Candian History books--including a "Canadian History for Dummies" by Will Ferguson. Not very academic--but sometimes I think not-very-academic history sticks better.

Oh--here's an idea--these folks: http://www.voyageurpublishing.ca/ attend our local homeschooling vendor's fair. They sell a wide collection of books about Canadian history and are quite friendly. They don't have much of their stuff out on their website, but apparently still have a print catalog--which I happen to have. They seem to be recommending "Spotlight Canada" as a text for twentieth century history. The authors of that book have also written "Flashback Canada" which appears to be earlier history. "Contact Canada" appears to cover Canadian geography (the required grade 9 class). My guess is that they'd be happy to talk to you by phone or by e-mail and may have suggestions (see their website for contact info).

[Ruth in Canada]

Even more alarming--the "Canadian history from WWI on" course is the only required history course in Ontario! So much for raising our children to be world citizens.

I don't think you'll be unhappy with "Story of Canada"--even if it's only something you use as a family reference.

If your kids are strong readers, you could have them read Pierre Burton's books! I didn't think I could ask that of grade 7 and 8 kids--but we'll do it when we circle back to more recent history in high school. Catherine Parr Trail's books about frontier life are also interesting--but intense.

Amazon.com has quite a collection of Candian History books--including a "Canadian History for Dummies" by Will Ferguson. Not very academic--but sometimes I think not-very-academic history sticks better.

Oh--here's an idea--these folks: http://www.voyageurpublishing.ca/ attend our local homeschooling vendor's fair. They sell a wide collection of books about Canadian history and are quite friendly. They don't have much of their stuff out on their website, but apparently still have a print catalog--which I happen to have. They seem to be recommending "Spotlight Canada" as a text for twentieth century history. The authors of that book have also written "Flashback Canada" which appears to be earlier history. "Contact Canada" appears to cover Canadian geography (the required grade 9 class). My guess is that they'd be happy to talk to you by phone or by e-mail and may have suggestions (see their website for contact info).

[HeatherC]

I ended up using some out-of-print resources, but did use the Spotlight Canada books as well. We combined history and geography.

Some of the titles we used:

Fair Domain
One Dominion - both of these are narrative history books; we read them out loud. The author is George E Tait, who was a professor of education at the University of Toronto. They were both published in the 1960's.

We went on from those two books to one called "The Twentieth Century" by R. S. Lambert - this book covered twentieth century history of Canada, Britain and the USA. It covered up to the late 1950's, and then we went on to I think Spotlight Canada, to cover more current history.

We did readers and read-alouds as well. We used some "Great Stories of Canada" books, some out-of-print stories by an author called John F. Hayes, and some more modern books as well. One I particularly liked was called "No Man's Land" by Kevin Major -- this was about a battle in the First World War that wiped out nearly an entire regiment of men who were from Newfoundland. On July 1 each, when the rest of Canada celebrates Canada Day, Nfld remembers this battle of Beaumont-Hamel....

Another favourite was "A River Apart" by Robert Sutherland -- it was a story of the war of 1812, and talked about 2 families who were friends - but lived on opposite sides of the St. Lawrence River, one at present day Prescott, one at present day Ogdensburg, NY (both of these towns are close to where we live now, so this story had a personal touch....). When the war of 1812 broke out, these families became "enemies"....

Anyhow- - some of these books are only available through used book sites -- I just checked Abebooks.com, and the 3 narrative histories we used are available, for varying prices.

You could probably cover your Canadian history not badly just reading like this. Depends how "formal" your work needs to be, and whether you need to produce a proper transcript and all that...

[Heather in Savannah]

I sure do appreciate you sharing that information from the curriculum fair with me. I'll have to call them tomorrow. I think it is sad that Ontario only requires the one Cdn history course at the highschool level...and that is "modern" history. 20th Century history and it's complexities isn't meaningful unless you have a good grasp of where we came from...the current Constitution put into place by Trudeau, with all it's inherent "rights", is meaningless unless you learned about the British North America Act....and on and on..

[Heather in Savannah]

HeatherC, I have to make up a full transcript, which makes things more complicated. We are registered with NARHS because we are straddling the two countries....it does limit me to a somewhat more formal way of schooling, as I have to produce proof that we studied the material. I do appreciate you looking up those books for me on AbeBooks. Thanks!

[Laurie in ON]

Ruth, I felt the same way about Canadian History and wanted a full survey for my highschool daughter. I think that Janet Lunn's book is very nicely done, but for younger students. I used it for my younger daughter in gr 7/8. For high school we used Defining Canada: History, Identity, and Culture. It is published by McGraw-Hill for use in gr 11/12. It is thorough and very useable, although many of the assignments are classroom oriented. There is no teachers guide. I had my daughter do lots of outlining and many short papers. We watched some of the Canada: A People's History videos; we are able to get them from the library. I had her read some Canadian literature, also.

[Laurie in ON]

Oops! My post was for Heather in Savananah!!

[Heather in Savannah]

Thanks Lori. I am hopeful that McGraw Hill may have a table of contents or scope and sequence on-line. My daughter will be in Grade 10 next year. Do you think this material will be to much for her? She is an average student.

[Laurie in ON]

Heather,

I think that the table of contents is on-line. I liked the book, and its arrangement. I used it in grade 10, but I did have to be pretty involved. There is lots of analysis and it moves fairly quickly - to get through our history in one year it needs to! We needed to stop and discuss things frequently, and part of me thinks that waiting a year would have been helpful. I was trying to dot the i's and cross the t's in case our daughter went to school for grade 11. (Canadian History is compulsory in grade 10 here.) I think you could easily assign the text for reading, and then use some small portion of every chapter or two for writing assignments. The text is well suited to outlining, and it does a good job of highlighting famous persons and significant events. There are lots of maps and great visuals. There are lots of Reveiw/Reflect/Respond questions in each chapter that make excellent assignments or discussion topics. I noticed when I looked around on the web, that some high school teachers use this text, but they do not use the whole text in a year - they leave out large portions to make time for larger research projects etc.

[Heather in Savannah]

Lori,
Are you interested in selling the text? Please e-mail me at kashbenj@hotmail.com
Blessings,
Heather

[SkiMom]

I know that this is an older thread but I thought I would post anyway. Donna Ward sells the People's History DVD's on her website as well as some high school level Canadian History, Geography and Civics textbooks. It might be worth checking out her website. HTH!

http://www.donnaward.ca/index.asp

[Heather in Savannah]

I had used her material when my children were in the early elementary years, and didn't think of checking to see if she had highschool level material available.
Thanks!
Heather

[StaceyL in Canada]

You can get the whole series for $100 or single sets (I-IV) for $30:

http://www.hhbooks.com

(based in Ontario).

I already have these plus the two-volume book set and plan to use those as our spine next year (for gr 9 and 11 boys), along with whatever else I can cobble together (texts available form the library, etc). We'll do this along wit Can. geog. We did study these subjects previously at a lower level but I like to cover the "equivalent" of Ontario high school requirements, though not necessarily in the same year as done in schools.