American History

History / Bible / Literature 100
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Age Range: 13-15
Grade Range: 8-10
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Uncover the rich treasures of American History

  • Live the thrilling story of America, from before Columbus to modern times.
  • Guide your children with confidence; this program provides daily plans and complete materials for the entire year.
  • Examine events, people and debates that have molded the United States.
  • Cheer on patriots who stood for freedom and justice ... and evaluate America's missteps with open eyes.
  • Watch your children read, write, discuss and grow as students with this American history curriculum.
  • Purchase this US history book package and you'll get free shipping (lower 48), a one-year guarantee and other perks.

100% MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE

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

Have a Question?

Contact Customer Service

Available 7am-5pm MT Mon-Fri.

1-800-903-1675

Uncover the rich treasures of American History

  • Live the thrilling story of America, from before Columbus to modern times.
  • Guide your children with confidence; this program provides daily plans and complete materials for the entire year.
  • Examine events, people and debates that have molded the United States.
  • Cheer on patriots who stood for freedom and justice ... and evaluate America's missteps with open eyes.
  • Watch your children read, write, discuss and grow as students with this American history curriculum.
  • Purchase this US history book package and you'll get free shipping (lower 48), a one-year guarantee and other perks.

Overview of the History

Instructor's Guides

We've formatted History 120 for independent study, if desired. Your History and Bible Parent Guide and separate History and Bible Student Guide weave materials together cohesively to direct your students with confidence each day.

The Parent Guide mirrors the Student Guide, but also includes answers and extra notes. So you can discuss their reading, check their progress, and bolster their academic and spiritual learning.

American History

Sonlight's 120 American History course offers a fascinating look at the ups and downs of the nation's past. As your children transition to independent learning, they will examine the events, people, and debates that molded the United States.

This course builds on the foundation of Joy Hakim's award-winning series A History of US. Hakim is an excellent storyteller. In her 10 volumes of history (and an eleventh book with original source documents), she tells the story from the first peoples who came to North America on. To the story, she adds additional fascinating sidebars, little tidbits of intrigue and interest. The whole set is profusely illustrated with photos, portraits, and political cartoons. The School Library Journal said, "One of the best nonfiction series of the decade. Impossible to put down." We agree. It's outstanding.

So the spine of the course is stellar. Yes. But to expand on Hakim, the Instructor's Guide has around 300 more pages of notes and articles. These offer counter-arguments to some of Hakim's views. With A History of US and the IG combined, you have an extraordinary tool to help your children think about, and understand, American History.

And there are 17 more history books to enjoy!

Some expand on a time: Before Columbus explores what America was like before Europeans arrived; The Yanks Are Coming offers wonderful details of WWI; World War II is self-explanatory in title,though the ideas are anything but normal.

Some are about specific people: Traitor: The Case of Benedict Arnold tells the story of the most famous turncoat in American history. The Great Little Madison tells of the Father of the Constitution, that weak-voiced thinker. David Wilkerson left a comfortable suburban pastorate to minister to gangs in New York. Cameron Townsend wondered how much more effective he would be as a missionary if the people had the Bible in their heart-language.

And some are about specific events: the story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, or the Montgomery Bus Boycott; writing the Constitution, fighting the battle of Gettysburg, building the Panama Canal.

From making moonshine during Prohibition, to unconstitutional internment in prison camps during WWII; from Chinese labor in the Sierra Nevadas of California, to teens fighting in the Civil War, this course offers a wide range of perspectives, nationalities, and locations.

After their children have worked through Sonlight's 120 course, some parents have their children take the CLEP exam (the College Level Examination Program test that counts for college credit at some schools). These students pass.

Even though many of the Sonlight books are not "challenging" in their reading level, the quantity of titles, the memorability of the books, and the incredible range of topics, make the whole a thorough, enjoyable study of American History.

Biblical Studies

Teach your children to live out their faith. The Bible 110 program includes Scripture reading and practical lessons in how to study, interpret and apply the Scriptures in everyday life. Help your students build their theological framework, explore the evidence for our faith and develop discipline in prayer. Help you raise children who love God and know what and why they believe.

Estimated daily time for American History: Student: 45min.

Our high school courses are separated by subject to allow customers maximum flexibility. Feel free to buy either the History or the Literature, or both, or to mix-and-match with the History and Literature of other Sonlight courses.

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, African-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.

Prefer to build your own course of study?

Create a complete course of study by mixing and matching individual high school courses. Visit sonlight.com/high-school to get started.

Instructor's Guide
  • History 120 Parent Guide
    Get all the lesson plans and teaching helps you need to effectively teach History, Geography and Bible for the entire year.
    Retail: $61.99
  • History 120 Student Guide
    Get the daily schedule and tools your student needs for History, Geography, and Bible for the entire year.
    Retail: $34.99
  • Literature 130 Parent Guide
    Get all the lesson plans and teaching helps you need to effectively teach Literature and Language Arts for the entire year.
    Retail: $61.99
  • Literature 130 Student Guide
    Get the daily schedule and tools your student needs for Literature and Language Arts for the entire year.
    Retail: $34.99
Bible
  • Bible Study Sampler
    Consumable. 36 weeks' worth of Bible study questions... with spaces for you to write your answers.
    Retail: $13.99
  • God's Will, God's Best for Your Life
    Easy-to-read help for teens who want to live life to the extreme, find true love, commit to life-long friends, prepare for a meaningful career—to live a life that matters.
    Retail: $13.99
  • Why Pray
    Provoke your prayer life to impact the world. This devotional offers a 40-day journey "from words to relationship" with God.
    Retail: $6.99
  • Evidence for Jesus
    Was Jesus a great teacher, a good prophet, or the Son of God? Muncaster reflects on Scripture in light of scientific, historical, archaeological, and literary discoveries to justify faith in Christ.
    Retail: $12.99
  • The Bible Jesus Read
    Yancey confronts key sections of the Hebrew Bible (Job, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and the Prophets) in search of a deeper understanding of Jesus and the central human issues He saw answered in...
    Retail: $16.99
History
  • Before Columbus
    A beautifully illustrated, scholarly look into the civilizations before the time of Columbus in America. Focuses on three main questions: Was the "New World" really new? Why were small groups of poorly...
    Retail: $13.99
  • The Boys' War
    A wrenching look at the American Civil War through the eyes of its youngest soldiers. Thousands of Confederate and Union soldiers were merely boys of 12 to 16 when they went to war. They fought and struggled...
    Retail: $12.99
  • Sacajawea
    The book Sacajawea Joseph Bruchac, Sacajawea, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark come to life in a beautifully told narrative. Closely adhering to the explorers' journals, this historical tale recreates...
    Retail: $7.99
  • Freedom Walkers
    You've heard of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. But who were the rest of the boycotters? Why did they summon incredible courage and risk their jobs and personal safety? How did they pull off...
    Retail: $14.99
  • The Great Little Madison
    This accessible volume tells the story of the "Father of the Constitution," James Madison. Follow Madison through his rise in politics; his struggle to help create and defend the Constitution; his friendship...
    Retail: $7.99
  • Shh! We're Writing the Constitution
    This US Constitution book is a brief, fun overview of the sweltering summer of 1787, when fifty-five delegates gathered to establish a stronger central government. Gives students a foundation for understanding...
    Retail: $7.99
  • World War II
    This World War 2 book clearly explains the key players, ideas, economics, ideologies and lasting effects of WWII.
    Retail: $19.95
  • The Yanks Are Coming
    A gripping account of how the United States joined WWI and helped turn the tide of the entire war. This fascinating narrative brings the war to life and reveals how the US mobilized industry, trained...
    Retail: $13.95
  • Cameron Townsend
    The exciting, thought-provoking and true story of Cameron Townsend-- founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators--and his mission to translate the Bible into every language.
    Retail: $11.99
  • The Cross and the Switchblade
    Modern classic about a pastor who gives up a comfortable life in the countryside to minister to gangs in New York City. Gripping.
    Retail: $8.99
  • Dragon's Gate
    When he accidentally kills a Manchu, a Chinese boy is sent to America to join his father, an uncle, and other Chinese working to build a tunnel for the transcontinental railroad through the Sierra Nevada...
    Retail: $7.99
  • Farewell to Manzanar Book
    The Farewell to Manzanar book is based on a true story of one Japanese American family's attempt to survive forced detention, and of a native-born American child who discovered what it was like to grow...
    Retail: $10.99
  • A History of US - Complete Paperback Set
    "A History of Us" by Joy Hakim is the story of the United States told through well-written, vivid, short biographies and hundreds of period illustrations, political cartoons, etchings and photographs.
    Retail: $175.45
  • The Landing of the Pilgrims
    In order to escape religious persecution, a group of English Separatists set sail for America in 1620, hoping to establish a new colony.
    Retail: $6.99
  • Moonshiner's Son
    This historical fiction for young readers is a stunning book about the clash of two cultures--the culture of whiskey makers in Prohibition-era backwoods Virginia, and the culture of an anti-whiskey Christian...
    Retail: $7.99
  • The Panama Canal
    A fascinating, colorful look at the Panama Canal, the idea behind it, how it was built, the men who built it, how it operates . . . and a whole lot more.
    Retail: $5.99
  • The Slopes of War
    A young soldier from West Virginia faces the Battle of Gettysburg knowing his two cousins may be fighting him.
    Retail: $7.99
  • Traitor: The Case of Benedict Arnold
    A study of the life and character of the brilliant Revolutionary War general who deserted to the British for money.
    Retail: $7.99
Readers
  • Bonanza Girl
    Fast-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: $11.99
  • Elijah of Buxton
    Newbery 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 South
    This 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. As the new Señora comes to love her new family and life, she...
    Retail: $14.99
  • They Loved to Laugh
    In 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 Score
    From 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 Sawyer
    Famous 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: $7.99
  • Rules of the Road
    Rules of the Road by Joan Bauer is about Mrs. Gladstone is the elderly, crusty president of a chain of shoe stores. Jenna is a gangly, gutsy 16-year-old who sells shoes after school. When Jenna drives...
    Retail: $8.99
  • Children of the Longhouse
    Ohkwa'ri overhears some older boys as they plan to raid a neighboring village. He tells his Mohawk elders and makes some enemies. The older boys will do anything they can to hurt Ohkwa'ri, especially...
    Retail: $7.99
  • Peace Child
    The 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 Man
    Born 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 Chicago
    Set 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. A Long Way from...
    Retail: $8.99
  • A Wrinkle in Time
    It was a dark and stormy night when Meg Murry, brother Charles Wallace and their mom decided to have a midnight snack in the kitchen. Then a most disturbing stranger appeared. "By the way, there is such...
    Retail: $8.99
  • When You Reach Me
    This story takes place in the real world of New York City, but holds a fantastic puzzle at its heart. A young girl's life starts to unravel when the mysterious notes begin to arrive, scrawled on tiny...
    Retail: $8.99
  • Bound for Oregon
    With 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: $6.99
  • Bud, Not Buddy
    It'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 Wild
    The "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 Saturday
    Four friends from a class of social outcasts attempt to win an Academic Bowl with the help of their encouraging teacher. Sarita says, "As a two-time Newbery Medal winner, you know she has a good writing...
    Retail: $8.99
  • Dear Mr. Henshaw
    Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary is an astonishing story about growing up, about love and disappointment.
    Retail: $7.99
  • Indian Captive
    Delightful 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 Magee
    After his parents die, Jeffrey Magee awes his friends with unbelievable feats.
    Retail: $8.99
  • Out of the Dust
    Billie 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: $7.99
  • Rip Van Winkle
    The full text of Washington Irving's classic accompanied by black-and-white renderings of illustrations by Arthur Rackham.
    Retail: $5.99
  • Stink Alley
    Adventuresome and feisty 12-year old Lizzy Tinker has to learn how to fit in with her community, 17th century Puritans in Holland.
    Retail: $14.99
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
    The 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 People
    This 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 Yonder
    Mary 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 Integrity
    Offers a practical Biblical model of male-female relationships based on our status as sons and daughters of God.
    Retail: $17.99
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Take up to one year to use your curriculum. If you don’t love it, return it! Complete details here.

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