Roman and Early Christian History Resource?

[Maverick]

Okay, I admit it: I am horrible at getting history done. Ever since we finished the Story of the World series it has been a struggle. We have done some history, but it has been hit and miss, a hodgepodge, and I have no idea how to transcript it.

Anyway, I really want a pick up and go history program to use for high school. My older will be in Running Start next year so I am just planning for the rising 9th grader. The problem is we have this really fantastic Great Books tutorial available (yeah, that's not really a problem) and someone else is picking the books and writing assignments. That is a good thing--I really need someone else to teach my kids writing and we have been thrilled with this tutor's classes for the last few years. The problem is that all the good history programs I look at (like History Odyssey) are a combo of great books and history. I just can't double up on those books--my ds is a strong reader but I'm afraid that would send him over the edge. Also, our book lists don't quite match up with TWTM divisions. We have Spielvogel and SWB's Ancient History book, and we have used them some but not as much as we could--I just have trouble getting it done without a syllabus or program to follow. I have tried making my own but it hasn't been consistent.

So, here's the bottom line--I need a history resource to go with this book list:
Vergil's Aenid
Clement of Alexandria's Exhortation to the Greeks; Rich Man's Salvation; To the Newly Baptized
Plutarch's The Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives
Athanasius' On the Incarnation
Augustine's The City of God
Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy

I would love to hear any and all ideas--there must be some history curriculum I don't know about that would fit the bill. FYI, this year he has read: Iliad, Odyssey, Famous Men of Athens (Plutarch's Lives), Three Theban Plays, Last Days of Socrates, and Herodotus' Histories. He did some reading in Bauer but not enough writing or projects, imo, to give him a full credit for history. It seems that most ancients programs would be repetetive but the above list starts earler than the "middle ages" programs I've seen.

Thanks for reading my ramblings!

[kate in seattle]

The challenge you have here is that those works only span about (IIRC) 500 years of history. I don't know of any high school course that limits itself to such a narrow time frame.

Two thoughts.

If you want to stick to the narrow historical time frame google for a college course syllabus on early christianity. you might have to get creative with your search terms. It's probably going to be an upper level course. And the historical readings are probably going to be from original sources, rather than a text book, but I don't really know.

You could expand the historical time frame backwards (since you think you may not have done an adequate job of history last year) and recover some of last year's time frame, using HOAW or Human Odyssey or even Western Civ.

[Maverick]

Kate, thanks for helping me think this through. I double checked the dates and the Aenid is 1st c. BC, Consolation of Philosophy is considered the last "classical" work at about the 6th c. AD. Maybe I should continue with HOAW--I could just jump ahead to Rome. By the time we finish that book the next one could be out (next Feb is the target, I believe). Maybe I just need to spend my summer writing very specific lesson plans for reading, writing assignments, and timeline. I could use HO as a model. My past stratedy of read 5 chapters, choose one person or event to write a page about, put important items on the timeline--maybe it was just too general and too easy to ignore. :tongue_smilie:

[kate in seattle]

There is a Teaching company course "Late Antiquity: Crisis & Transformation" that seems to fit this time period perfectly. You might want to check on that. I know King county has it in the library system. it might even be on sale now - i can't remember - what a spaz, i was just on their web site.

[Maverick]

Ooh, that looks really good. It is not on sale now but I have a KC library card. ;-)