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American Historical Literature
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Take up to one year to use your curriculum. If you don’t love it, return it! Complete details here.


Get complete lesson plans, schedule and teaching notes for the entire year. Package includes the Level 130 American Historical Literature Parent Guide and accompanying American Historical Literature Student Guide. Package also includes all of the American Historical Literature books, as well as Dating with Integrity, scheduled in these guides.
Overview of the Literature
Instructor's Guides
Your Literature 130 Instructor's Guides (IG) weaves all your materials into one exciting and cohesive program. Starting in this upper-level program, you receive both a Literature and Language Arts Parent Guide and a separate Student Guide.
The Parent Guide mirrors the Student Guide, but also includes answers, provides extra notes and allows you to check their progress and discuss their reading. This format allows you to be as engaged or as hands-off as you and your students like.
American Historical Literature
Sonlight's 130 Literature moves roughly chronologically through American History. The books are in a variety of genres, including lyric poetry, short story, novella, novel, memoir, science fiction, historical fiction, and travelogue. There is a novel told in vignettes, a novel told from multiple points of view, an epistolary novel, and a novel-in-verse.
The setting of the books is also varied across the United States: Alaska, California, Idaho, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Michigan, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Also a covered wagon trip from Arkansas to Oregon, and a car road trip from Chicago to Texas.
You'll read a book about each of our North American neighbors: Elijah of Buxton takes place in Canada and My Heart Lies South takes place in Mexico.
The male and female authors are Caucasian, Africian-American, Abenaki, and Korean-American.
The Literature includes several mature works. The poetry book, for example, contains collections by six of America's top poets, including Whitman, Dickinson, Frost, and Sandburg.
You probably know the story of Rip Van Winkle, who went to the mountains and ended up asleep for twenty years. It's a classic American short story. The author has a scintillating vocabulary, which makes the simple story quite a challenging read.
Jack London's Call of the Wild, about a California dog kidnapped to the Yukon during the Gold Rush, explores how deep our "civilization" really runs. What does life look like without external moral boundaries?
And the classic To Kill a Mockingbird, one of my favorites, looks at racial tension in the South, with a bit of courtroom drama (and who doesn't love that?).
Apart from these, most of the books are not challenging reads. Some of the topics are more mature than I'd prefer for elementary school children. For example, Keeping Score includes a character who returned from the Korean War with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after he witnessed war crimes. This is not comfortable history, though told gently. Rules of the Road's main character is a teen who has to figure out what it looks like to have a relationship with a drunk, deadbeat dad. Bonanza Girl, despite the incredible charm of the story, deals with intense racism in an Idaho gold-mining town.
None of these books focus on dark things. But they all include it, making this, I believe, an excellent transitional course, for upper middle school and lower high school.
Overall, this is a charming collection, diverse, interesting, enjoyable, and thought-provoking.
Life Skills
The counter-cultural view presented in Dating With Integrity challenges your children to stop and think about how they view dating. It also provides a great opportunity for you to discuss positive, healthy interaction with members of the opposite sex.
Language Arts
Fully integrated with the Literature, this year's Language Arts builds on past years and continues to develop literary analysis, creative writing, research, and essay skills, with weekly writing assignments in a range of lengths and topics.
Estimated daily time for American Literature: Student: 45min.
- Literature 130 Parent GuideComplete lesson plans and teaching helps you need to effectively teach Level 130 Literature and Language Arts for the entire year.Retail: $64.00
- Literature 130 Student GuideThe daily schedule and tools your student needs for Level 130, Literature and Language Arts for the entire year.Retail: $37.00
- Bonanza GirlFast-paced story of a widow and her two children who try to make their mark in an 1880s Idaho gold-mining town.This is a fun read-alone chapter book.Retail: $14.00
- Elijah of BuxtonNewbery winner by author Christopher Paul Curtis. An inspiring coming-of-age story set in a settlement of runaway slaves who have escaped to Canada.Retail: $7.99
- My Heart Lies SouthThis work is a delightful true story of an American woman journalist who moves south of the border and marries a Mexican man in the 1930s.Retail: $14.99
- They Loved to LaughIn the 1830s, a young orphan with grave blue eyes heads to a new life in North Carolina. As she learns to adapt to her new Quaker surroundings, her new family and friends wonder if this solemn girl will...Retail: $14.95
- Keeping ScoreFrom the author of the Newbery-winning A Single Shard comes a carefully researched read aloud book about the 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers, the Korean War and the very real ups and downs of life.Retail: $7.99
- The Adventures of Tom SawyerFamous tale of a boy's life in a small town on the banks of the Mississippi River as told by author Mark Twain. Pb.Retail: $8.99
- Rules of the RoadJenna is a gangly, gutsy 16-year-old who sells shoes after school. When Jenna drives Mrs. Gladstone (the elderly, crusty president of a chain of shoe stores) on a cross-country "road trip", the two learn...Retail: $9.99
- Children of the LonghouseThis educational reading book tells a great tale about doing the right thing, even in the face of opposition.Retail: $7.99
- Peace ChildThe Sawi cannibals of Irian Jaya think Judas is a hero for "fattening Jesus for the slaughter." This is the amazing story of how God prepared a tribal culture to receive the Good News of Jesus Christ.Retail: $16.99
- Amos Fortune, Free ManBorn the son of an African king, Amos Fortune was captured by slave traders in 1725, brought to America and sold at auction.Retail: $7.99
- A Long Way from ChicagoSet in pre-Word War II America, this charming collection of short stories recounts the visits of a brother and sister to their eccentric grandmother in a small town in rural Illinois.Retail: $8.99
- A Wrinkle in TimeOne of the most spellbinding space adventure and time travel books. Winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal.Retail: $8.99
- When You Reach MeThis story takes place in the real world of New York City, but holds a fantastic puzzle at its heart. Winner of the Newbery Medal and a New York Times bestseller, When You Reach Me by author Rebecca Stead...Retail: $8.99
- Bound for OregonWith only a guide book to show them the way, the Todd family sets out from their Arkansas home on a two thousand mile trek to claim uncharted Oregon Territory.Retail: $7.99
- Bud, Not BuddyIt's 1936 in Flint, Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy who never knew his father, but Bud's got a few things going for him.Retail: $8.99
- Call of the WildThe "Call of the Wild" book is gripping tale of a heroic dog who, thrust into the Alaska Gold Rush, faces a choice between living in man's world or returning to nature.Retail: $6.99
- The View from SaturdayFour friends from a class of social outcasts attempt to win an Academic Bowl with the help of their encouraging teacher.Retail: $8.99
- Dear Mr. HenshawDear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary is an astonishing story about growing up, about love and disappointment.Retail: $9.99
- Indian CaptiveDelightful Newbery Honor story of what happened to a twelve year old white girl who was captured by Seneca Indians in 1758.Retail: $9.99
- Maniac MageeAfter his parents die, Jeffrey Magee awes his friends with unbelievable feats.Retail: $8.99
- Out of the DustBillie Jo, a 14-year-old girl caught in the Oklahoma dust storms of the 1930s, reveals the grim realities of a life lived in that time and place.Retail: $8.99
- Rip Van WinkleThe full text of Washington Irving's classic accompanied by black-and-white renderings of illustrations by Arthur Rackham.Retail: $5.99
- Stink AlleyAdventuresome and feisty 12-year old Lizzy Tinker has to learn how to fit in with her community, 17th century Puritans in Holland.Retail: $16.00
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper LeeThe unforgettable story of a young girl whose father stands up for principle in the face of deadly prejudice.Retail: $16.99
- A Treasury of Poetry for Young PeopleThis book of classic poems for students is a treasury of more than 150 works by six of America's finest poets.Retail: $29.99
- Year Down YonderMary Alice, a middle-class high school girl from Chicago, leaves the big city to spend 1937 in rural Illinois with her rough-around-the-edges and unconventional grandmother.Retail: $8.99
- Dating With IntegrityOffers a practical Biblical model of male-female relationships based on our status as sons and daughters of God.Retail: $20.00


100% MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE
Take up to one year to use your curriculum. If you don’t love it, return it! Complete details here.

