Modern U.S. and World (11-12)

We loved the literature selection- we used this program over 2 years and it was just what I was looking for. Lots of reading- I read along with my son and we had such wonderful discussions.

After reading many reviews, I chose to spread this out over a 13 month period. Began in May of my girls' junior year and went through the May of their senior year. Regarding "graphic content"; since we read the Bible in it's entirety every year, there's nothing you wouldn't see or children shouldn't already be well aware of prior to 9th grade. Abraham really did marry his half sister, the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah really did try to sodomize the angels and Lot offered his own daughters in their place, in a cowardly move Abraham basically allowed his wife to sleep with other men saying she was his sister, Simeon and Levi killed an entire village, after convincing them to be circumcised, for raping their sister Dinah, Lot's daughters got their father drunk and each slept with him and conceived.... and I'm not even to Moses yet. Each year, as the King James Version was read aloud, my girls would ask more and more questions. By about the 4th grade all the above topics were understood. I can think of no better way than to teach them about the moral hazards they will encounter in the world than by reading straight from the Bible and answering their questions as you go. By the time Genesis is complete (much less the other 65 books) they will have the Biblical worldview necessary to critically evaluate anything from To Kill a Mockingbird to the Kite Runner and they will be able to make critical analogies to the Bible. The topics may be tastefully presented in homeschool from a Biblical world view or sheltered from view until encountered via strangers and social media.All that being said, sex and sexual references make up less than 5% of this total curriculum which offers a wealth of history. Our personal favorite was Red Scarf Girl. My only suggestion is to begin the summer before the school year starts and to keep in mind the reading load of this class as you assign reading for other subjects.

While there are amazing literature pieces in this collection, there are also some that should not be included. In addition the amount of reading is tremendous even for a top student. Certainly not the easy to use curriculum that once was BFB. Now there is much previewing and altering which is not worth my time. I cant even match it to a normal timeline with things like the Industrial Revolution being referenced after the entire Civil War unit. Warnings about content in some of the books would have been appreciated.

This is a 11/12 grade level class, but I found that if you did all the reading and work you could easily take 2 years to cover and complete it all. I did it with 2 9th graders and an 11th grader. I opted to skip some of the books depending on the student's frame. That said, it's all very good content. I don't agree that the books are too mature, as an 11/12 grader is nearly an adult and needs to know about things. It's easy to say 'don't read chapter - ' in regard to the rape and sex. This is a very good core/spine to go off of for this upper level class!

Hypersexualized No alternatives recommended Very disappointed Do NOT Recommend!