[PLEASE READ CAREFULLY]
This is your "orientation" for Exploring World History. Please carefully read what I've written here and do everything it says to do, so that when you begin to do this class you will understand what the abbreviations are and what parts of the curriculum are required, what parts are your choice which ones to do, and which parts are optional.
• EWH Folder
>To start with, you will need to make a sub folder in your School folder on your computer to put your writing projects in. Call it English for EWH, or Notgrass Exploring World History, or just Exploring World History. You may use Microsoft Word, WordPad, or Open Office, whichever you prefer or have available to you.
• Notebook
>Next, you are going to need a notebook to write the answers for the Student Review questions. You may ask for a regular paper notebook to write your Review answers in, or you may create a Microsoft Word, WordPad, or Open Office document in your School>English for EWH (or whatever you named it) folder on your computer and call it "EWH Student Review." The upside of having it be a paper notebook will be that you don't need to try to hold the floppy Student Review while typing on the computer without dropping it, you can simply set both books on your schooldesk right next to each other. The upside of having it be a computer document would be if you type faster than you write. Let me know what you decide so I can get you the paper notebook if you need one and so I know where to find your answers to check them from now on. The directions in the rest of your scheduling will assume you've picked a paper notebook, so just mentally switch it to a computer document as you read if you need to.
• Exploring World History, Part 1 (EWH1) - green cover.
>This is the textbook you will start the year with and will last you half the schoolyear. Today you will read pages vii to xvi (everything between the Table of Contents and page 1). Next, just read/look at the weekly projects on the yellow pages 2, 26, 50, 74, 100, 128, 158, 186, 218, 248, 274, 312, 344, 374, & 404. If you are planning to earn an English credit with this course then you should choose the writing option at least 5 times during this semester. School years are divided into two "semesters" that are each half the school year. So you will need to pick the writing project 5 times while you're doing EWH1. Look over those yellow pages and decide which 5 writing projects you most want to do. You can change your mind later, just give yourself an idea to start with. Open your Notebook and on the first page, write the 5 projects you picked and what lesson number they are from. Another option would be to print out the "Project Ideas" list which will have all the project ideas for both semesters listed and use a highlighter to highlight all the ones that interest you. Maybe use a different color for the writing based projects so you will be able to see more easily if you've selected enough of that type of assignment by the end of the year.
There is also an "Assignment Checklist" printout which you should ask for. It has handy little checkboxes you can check everything-Notgrass off so you know you did it all each day.
• Exploring World History, Part 2 (EWH2) - light brown cover, like the color of gingerbread.
>Don't worry about this book yet. It's the second semester of this subject. Don't lose it, but put it somewhere it will be safe from damage and you will know where to find it when you finish the green book and are ready to switch.
• In Their Words (ITW) - the big maroon textbook
Read pg. v & vi. This is a literature book, sort of, but also a history book. It contains historical documents, poems, stories, etc. that ARE literature but are there to help you learn about history.
• Exploring World History Student Review (SR or SRev) - spiral bound with a full color cover. >Contains the questions for each lesson, the questions for Literature, commentary on the Bible passages you're scheduled to read, and sometimes a Literary Analysis for a book you'll be scheduled to read. The questions are things that will be in the quizzes and tests. Read pages 1-9. Now just to get a feel for how it's laid out, look at page 11 and page 99.
• Quiz and Exam Book
>Borrow the Quiz and Exam book and flip through it for a few seconds. A Unit is a week long - 5 lessons. A Quiz is like a practice test. An Exam is the same thing as a Test. In the Quiz and Exam Book are Quizzes for each Unit as well as Exams every few Units for History, Bible, and English.
• Literature
>Make sure you know where the books are kept which will be used for Literature this year. You will be given a number of days in which to read the book. It will say how many on the first day of a new book assignment. For example it might say "You have 10 days to read this book." on the first day you are assigned a 14-chapter book. You will have to do the math in your mind and say to yourself, "That means I do 7 chapters a week... 1 chapter every schoolday, plus an extra chapter 2 times each week. Maybe I should do the extra ones on my lightest two schooldays each week."
Also, somewhere on your schedule it should say the lesson or Unit of your Notgrass history that this literature assignment goes with. Please match them when you do them: do the literature assignment for Lesson 11 (unit 3) on the same day you do the Lesson 11 (unit 3) history lesson.
It should be noted that not every week of Notgrass history has a literature assignment, because buying that many books would probably break the bank, but I have some ideas I'm going to fill in with and those won't have a Literary Analysis assignment and may not relate as precisely to the history lesson, though I will try to pick interesting books that fit in well to enhance your enjoyment of history. :)
One last thing: Each literature selection from Notgrass (the italicized books listed below and some of the selections from the textbook In Their Words-yes you have to read/answer questions for those, too!) has a Literary Analysis assignment after you finish reading it. These will be in your Student Review after your history questions for the day. In school you generally write a book report at some point in 4th-6th grade, you do several literature study guides at some point in Middle School or 9th grade, and in High School you've levelled up again to doing Literary Analysis. If you need help remembering what you're supposed to talk about in a literary analysis, re-read the first 9 pages of your Student Review.
- The Golden Goblet (Eloise Jarvis McGraw)*
- The Cat of Bubastes (G.A. Henty)
- The Eagle of the Ninth (Rosemary Sutcliff)*
- The Art of War (Sun Tzu)
- Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare)
- The Imitation of Christ (Thomas à Kempis)
- Here I Stand (Roland Bainton)
- A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
- North and South (Elizabeth Gaskell)
- The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Boom)
- Animal Farm (George Orwell)
- Bridge to the Sun (Gwen Terasaki)
- Cry, the Beloved Country (Alan Paton)
- The Abolition of Man (C.S. Lewis)
*Not from the Notgrass package. These will be read-only, or there will be a Birch Grove guide linked to them, or they will have a Progeny Press guide instead of the Notgrass Literature Analysis.
• Bible
>If you are doing the Bible component of Notgrass as your Bible subject for the year, alone or in addition to another Bible curriculum (such as Rod & Staff), you may wish to go HERE and click the button called "Bible Commentary" which will take you to a PDF you (ask first) should print out 2-sided, the whole thing, and keep it with your Bible. Then go back and click the button called "Bible Reading Assignments" which is a 1-sided page with check boxes for all the Bible passages for the year. Be SURE to ASK if they have already been printed out before printing, lest you waste paper and ink. Read the verses it says to and the commentary underneath, on the day you do the associated lesson for history. You can move a sticky note or Post-it flag bookmark through the commentary pages, and just check off the checklist with a writing utensil. Not every lesson has a commentary! This is why you need both the checklist AND the commentary. The commentary is also INCLUDED inside your Student Review book right after your day's history questions if you'd prefer not to print it for ink and paper reasons, or if you'd prefer to do all your Notgrass at the same time of day instead of doing the Bible portion in the morning and the rest later. The checklist would still be good to print though.
• Projects
>Each week you will have to pick a project. On the list of potential projects for the week, it will say something like "see lesson 2" or "see lesson 23" at the end of each option. You only have until Friday evening to turn in your project, Sunday night at the latest. So if the essay you picked says "see lesson 3" don't wait until lesson 3 (which falls on Wednesday) to start writing down ideas! Have a rough draft written or at least a good list of topics and notes and then when the day the lesson it's associated with comes, read the history lesson and then use what you learned to polish up and finish your essay. You might even want to look ahead and read the photo captions so you sort of know what you're doing when you start your project.
This is now the end of your orientation. On the next school day, you will do Lesson 1 as scheduled.
*****Starting Autumn 2021 the assignments for Notgrass are scheduled as 2 subjects: Literature and History (Social Studies). Bible is only scheduled as Rod & Staff so far in case you choose to do the Notgrass Bible assignments during your history assignments instead of in the mornings with the Rod & Staff. Whichever time you decide on for your Bible assignments, you will need the checklist, which I have already printed, for Bible. You can keep it in the pages of your Rod & Staff if you plan to do it in the morning at the same time, or you can keep it between the pages of your History textbook if you plan to do it with History.
