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World History and Worldview Studies
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Explore the rise and fall of influential ideologies
- Discover in historical context the ideas that have shaped history.
- Learn how key worldviews developed and how they impact the way individuals make sense of reality.
- Understand the consequences of past and present philosophies.
- Accompany your students as they develop a sound, discerning approach to historical and biblical worldviews, and solidify their own beliefs.
- Purchase this package and you'll get free shipping (lower 48), a one-year guarantee and other perks.
Overview of the History
Instructor's Guides
Your History and Bible 520 course includes both a Parent Guide and a Student Guide. This format allows your learners to study independently, but also supports accountability. As your students work through the topics and questions in their guide, you can easily walk alongside, accessing answers, notes and other helpful tools that let you monitor their understanding and progress, discuss issues and become involved to the extent desired.
Your IGs also include more than 30 supplementary articles on wide-ranging subjects, from Taoism to technology. These contain additional insights to help you successfully address challenging topics that are introduced.
World History and Worldview Studies
History tends to focus on names, dates, and events. But what's behind it all? Why do people behave as we do? What beliefs drive our behaviors?
Every individual has an underlying worldview – the way each person makes sense of reality. Think of a worldview as the tinted glasses each person looks through to see the world.
When you study the beliefs that people hold, you gain insight into why people think and act as they do.
Sonlight's 520 World History and Worldview Studies offers an opportunity to discover, in historical context, the ideas that have shaped history, along with the consequences of these ideas and philosophies. My hope is that it will help students think deeply about issues of personal, social, and ethical significance.
The spine of the History course is the two-volume set Streams of Civilization. Volume 1 covers Ancient History through the early 16th Century. Volume 2 continues on, through the beginning of the 21st Century. Written by Christian authors, these books not only provide a beautiful historical overview of the rise and fall of civilizations, but also offer unique insights about science, music, art, architecture, and pop culture.
Bible and Worldview
Four books lay the foundation for the Bible segment of the course. The Universe Next Door introduces teens to nine prominent worldviews, including deism, existentialism, naturalism and nihilism. Total Truth integrates the history of ideas with their relevance to Christianity. Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult gives your students a brilliant introduction to key topics, like reasoning, ultimate reality, and morality. And Good Ideas from Questionable Christians and Outright Pagans explains the ideas of history's principal philosophers: Aristotle, Augustine, Nietzsche, Marx and other well-known thinkers through the ages.
As you together talk through the beliefs that will guide your students throughout their lives, I hope they grow in maturity, so that they will be deeply rooted, prepared to make a positive difference for God's kingdom.
Estimated daily time for World History and Worldview Studie: Student: 1 hr.
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.
What's in a worldview?
From ancient times to modern days, history has impacted the world in significant ways. Typical approaches to history tend to focus on names, dates and events. But what's behind it all? Why do people behave as we do? Where do the beliefs that drive our behaviors originate?
Every individual has an underlying worldview. A worldview is simply how we see and make sense of reality. When we understand the ideologies to which we subscribe, consciously or not, we can also gain insight into why we think as we do about truth, faith, science, art, education and many other issues.
We created World History and Worldview Studies to give your 17- and 18-year-old (and advanced 16-year-old) students an understanding of the important ideas and philosophies that have influenced our world through the ages. It will help them think deeply about issues of personal, social and ethical significance. What's more, it will provide a platform for you to discuss together, examine and help solidify the belief system that will guide your children and ultimately serve as a lifelong compass.
36 weeks of History and Bible
World History and Worldview Studies 520 is a 36-week course that provides an expansive look at history and also includes distinctive Christian commentary. Pair it with any upper-level Literature course to create the program that best serves your students.
Spanning ancient history through the start of the 21st century, Streams of Civilization, Volumes 1 and 2, anchor the history portion of the course. Written by Christian authors, these books not only provide a beautiful historical overview, but also weave in unique insights and analysis about science, music, art, architecture, pop culture and other topics of interest throughout.
Four equally engaging books lay the foundation for the Bible segment of the course:
The Universe Next Door introduces your children to nine prominent worldviews, such as deism, existentialism, naturalism and nihilism.
Total Truth integrates the history of ideas with their relevance to Christianity on a practical level.
Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult gives your students a brilliant introduction to key topics: reasoning, ultimate reality, morality and more.
Good Ideas from Questionable Christians and Outright Pagans takes your learners on an illuminating journey where they'll encounter the ideas of history's principal philosophers, including Aristotle, Augustine, Nietzsche, Marx and others.
Combine with other courses
What's the perfect complement for World History and Worldview Studies? Customizable upper-level options leave that decision in your hands. Depending on what works best for your students, you can team this course with one of our 36-week high school Literature courses to create the complete experience (with all associated benefits) you want.
You also have the flexibility to combine 520 with other upper-level courses of your choice, such as Psychology, Economics, College and Career Planning and What Good Is Christianity? as well as Science and Math.
Overview of the Literature
Instructor's Guide
The Literature 530 course can be largely self-taught. Your children are able to chart their own course with help from the Literature and Language Arts Student Guide. The corresponding Parent Guide lets you jump in at any time to assess learning or engage in meaningful discussion.
World Literature
People have always told stories. And the best stories still resonate, even 4000 years later. The Ancients felt the same fears and loves that we do.
This course captures our shared humanity.
Sonlight's 530 Literature is mostly chronological, moving from the ancient poem The Epic of Gilgamesh, where Gilgamesh, after the death of his friend, seeks to avoid death, to the modern play Copenhagen, where Nobel-Prize winning scientists consider the atomic bomb, and how to create (or avoid?) this instrument of death.
There are several foundational texts of World Literature that come up regularly as shared cultural references: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus. Even without reading these, you've probably heard about the Trojan War, or about Odysseus's trials as he tried to reach his wife Penelope, or about the mother-lust of Oedipus, made famous by Freud.
We have, then, a book about war, a book about a journey, and a book about self-knowledge. These themes come up again, with variation, through the rest of the course.
War and enmity go back to the first family, and this course includes Night, a memoir of a Jew in a concentration camp during WWII, and also The Aeneid, Virgil's epic poem on seeking a homeland and the war to conquer it.
"The Journey" is a common theme in literature. Go away to find yourself. (Think of Chicken Little.) This course has several books about the journey: The Epic of Gilgamesh, where the title character goes to find the Babylonian version of Noah to win eternal life; Candide, where the title character is a world-traveling innocent; and Don Quixote, where the title character attempts impossibilities.
And self-knowledge? Crime and Punishment's depressed Raskolnikov needs some resolution after his great sin; Dante's hero has lost his way and travels through hell as he seeks to find his way again; King Lear suffers much before he gains wisdom and understanding.
It's incredible to read books of power and beauty, and to see how different people, in different times, have wrestled with the big questions in life.
Besides covering 4000 years, this course is not confined to Europe only. We do have great works from authors in the European countries of Greece, Italy, England, France, Spain, Romania, and Russia.
But we also have great works from authors in the Asian countries of Iran, China, Japan, and India, as well as ancient Mesopotamia.
We have great works from authors in the African countries of Nigeria, Algeria, South Africa, and Kenya.
And we have great works from the South American countries of Colombia and Argentina.
To read that list excites me! So much richness!
And that's not counting the collection of poetry! Add to the above: New Zealand, Scotland, Germany, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Poland, Chile, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Wales, and St. Lucia. (With New Zealand and St. Lucia, we've covered all the inhabited continents.)
This is truly "World" Literature.
Besides books dealing with universal themes, and besides works from around the world, this course employs a wide range of literary styles. It includes drama, comedy, tragedy, graphic novel, novella, novel, short story, saga, epic poem, lyric poem, and memoir. Incredible!
The list is a "who's who" of best books of all time. And I could talk at length about the beauty of these books, because they are beautiful. I'd rather you read the books and experience their richness.
After finishing this course, students will not only have had a year of beautiful books and great thoughts, they will also be able to understand common cultural references: Oedipal complexes, quixotic endeavors, Panglossian optimism, and circles of hell, for example.
It's a great, great year.
Language Arts
Fully integrated with the Literature, Language Arts builds on past years and continues to develop literary analysis, creative writing, research and essay skills. The first semester follows a writing manual to help organize thoughts and improve writing craft. The second semester includes writing prompts for papers to put the instruction into practice.
Come spend a year with the best World Literature of all time.
Estimated daily time for World Literature: Student: 75 mins.
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.
- History 520 Parent GuideGet all the lesson plans and teaching helps you need to effectively teach History, Geography and Bible for the entire year.Retail: $64.00
- History 520 Student GuideGet the daily schedule and tools your student needs for History, Geography, and Bible for the entire year.Retail: $37.00
- Literature 530 Parent GuideComplete lesson plans and teaching helps you need to effectively teach Level 530 Literature and Language Arts for the entire year.Retail: $64.00
- Literature 530 Student GuideThe daily schedule and tools your student needs for Level 530, Literature and Language Arts for the entire year.Retail: $37.00
- Total TruthThis title integrates the history of ideas with their relevance to Christianity on a practical level.Retail: $29.99
- The Universe Next DoorThis accessible title introduces your children to nine prominent worldviews, such as deism, existentialism, naturalism and nihilism.Retail: $35.00
- Philosophy Made Slightly Less DifficultGive your students a brilliant introduction to key topics: reasoning, ultimate reality, morality and more.Retail: $26.00
- Good Ideas from Questionable Christians and PagansTake an illuminating journey where you'll encounter the ideas of history's principal philosophers, including Aristotle, Augustine, Nietzsche, Marx and others.Retail: $30.00
- Streams of Civilization, Volume 1This first volume covers ancient history through the early 16th century.Retail: $48.95
- Streams of Civilization, Volume 2This second volume continues the story from the 17th century, accompanying learners through the beginning of the 21st century.Retail: $55.95
- The Epic of GilgameshMiraculously preserved on clay tablets dating back as much as four thousand years, the poem of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, is the world's oldest epic, predating Homer by many centuries. The story tells of...Retail: $15.00
- The Insanity of GodThe personal and lifelong journey of an ordinary couple from rural Kentucky who thought they were going on just your ordinary missionary pilgrimage, but discovered it would be anything but. After spending...Retail: $14.99
- King LearShakespeare's bleakest and profoundest tragedy, a searing dramatization of humankind at the edge of apocalypse that explores the family and the nature of being with passion, poetry, and dark humor. Edited...Retail: $7.99
- The Essential IliadThe Iliad is one of the two great epics of Homer, and is typically described as one of the greatest war stories of all time, but to say the Iliad is a war story does not begin to describe the emotional...Retail: $15.50
- Oedipus TyrannusPeter Meineck and Paul Woodruff's collaboration on this new translation combines the strengths that have recently distinguished both as translators of Greek tragedy: expert knowledge of the Greek and...Retail: $15.00
- The Misanthrope and TartuffeOne of the best of his plays – and one of the greatest of all comedies – is The Misanthrope, first performed in 1666, when the King of France himself had assumed patronage of Molière's company, and...Retail: $16.99
- The OdysseyRobert Fitzgerald's translation of Homer's The Odyssey is the best and best-loved modern translation of the greatest of all epic poems. Since 1961, this Odyssey has sold more than two million copies,...Retail: $17.00
- NightA terrifying account of the Nazi death camp horror that turns a young Jewish boy into an agonized witness to the death of his family...the death of his innocence...and the death of his God. Penetrating...Retail: $12.00
- CandideCaustic and hilarious, Voltaire's Candide has ranked as one of the world's great satires since its first publication in 1759. It concerns the adventures of the youthful Candide, disciple of Dr. Pangloss,...Retail: $4.00
- Risking EverythingThis luminous anthology brings together great poets from around the world whose work transcends culture and time. Their words reach past the outer divisions to the universal currents of love and revelation...Retail: $21.00
- The Lively Art of WritingThe basic principles involved in communicating ideas on paper are carefully reviewed for the aspiring writer as well as the student. This is one of the few English essay writing books that is actually...Retail: $8.99
- Things Fall ApartThings Fall Apart tells two intertwining stories, both centering on Okonkwo, a "strong man" of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first, a powerful fable of the immemorial conflict between the individual...Retail: $14.00
- The Aeneid of VirgilAeneas flees the ashes of Troy to found the city of Rome and change forever the course of the Western world--as literature as well. Virgil's Aeneid is as eternal as Rome itself, a sweeping epic of arms...Retail: $5.95
- A Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: InfernoPerhaps the most stirring masterpiece from the Middle Ages, Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy was an astonishing achievement that places the author among the ranks of the great epic poets of the classical...Retail: $6.95
- The RamayanaA sweeping tale of abduction, battle, and courtship played out in a universe of deities and demons, The Ramayana is familiar to virtually every Indian. Although the Sanskrit original was composed by Valmiki...Retail: $16.00
- Other Voices, Other VistasThis collection of contemporary multi-cultural fiction includes stories by: Bessie Head Charles Mungoshi Ngugi wa Thiong'o Wang Anyi Ding Ling Wang Meng Chen Rong Lu Wenfu Anita Desai Mahasweta Devi Ruth...Retail: $8.95
- Don QuixoteWith his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, Don Quixote sets off on picaresque adventures in 16th-century Spain, in one of the treasures of Western literature, both an immoral satire and a biting portrayal...Retail: $7.95
- Chronicle of a Death ForetoldA man returns to the town where a baffling murder took place 27 years earlier, determined to get to the bottom of the story. Just hours after marrying the beautiful Angela Vicario, everyone agrees, Bayardo...Retail: $15.00
- Crime and PunishmentFyodor Dostoevsky is one of the world's greatest novelists and the Crime and Punishment novel is one of his greatest achievements. When Raskolnikov believes he is above the law, he murders an old woman...Retail: $18.00
- The StrangerThrough the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."Retail: $15.00
- PersepolisPersepolis is Marjane Satrapi's memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six...Retail: $16.00
- CopenhagenAn explosive re-imagining of the mysterious wartime meeting between two Nobel laureates to discuss the atomic bomb.Retail: $17.00


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

