US1 & US2 Discussions - History semester, changing to BJU, etc.

[Julie in MN]

We are new to MFW this year, and are overall enjoying it very much. I have one doing AHL and one doing US1.
AHL gal is coming along well.

My 11th grader (who has historically been the better student!) is struggling a bit. She is a big reader and writer, and our curriculum up to this year has played into that strength. No testing, lots of written narration, etc. The workload from day to day is actually a good bit lighter than she's used to, but the information processing is just not coming along well. She is struggling with mostly the history tests and chemistry tests. I wasn't too worried at first, since this is her first year doing this type of assessment.

Actually, the chemistry is much better, and we feel pretty good about that. I think she's finally learned how to study for that (with the detailed study guides).

But for history, she's still having a tough, tough time. She is reviewing the chapter/section reviews/quizzes (can't remember what they call them). But she can't find the "connect" of how to really determine what info will be tested. She is on week 12. Does anyone have a suggestion as far as how to study?

You know, have you tried an open book test? If you haven't, I might stop and do a couple of those and see if it helps her get what the text author is doing as he takes a student through the text, study materials, and test. Maybe I'm lax, but I don't consider it a lot different than some of the spoon-feeding-test-prep sessions I've seen in public schools.

I've also allowed my students to correct wrong answers for half credit, or sometimes even just discuss why the student answered the way he did, for more credit, possibly allowing her the option of finding the correct answer in the book. Even discussing the other multiple choice options was often educational at my house, resulting in giving back credit. And there's always extra credit - my public-schooled son did a lot of extra credit and he still excelled in college. Oh, and was there a note in one of the parent answer keys about dropping a test question at parent discretion, if you decide it wasn't an area of emphasis at your house -- or maybe I'm wrong, maybe that was in one of the other courses like economics?

Another suggestion for truly figuring out what's going on would be for a parent to look up the wrong answers in the text and find out where they were taught, evaluate how well they were taught, etc.

Just a few ideas. Hopefully other high school families will have a chance to share their experiences.
Julie

[cappy]

On the last test that she did, I did have her go back and look up correct answers and write them down in sentence form. I also had her copy word for word the answers to the two essay questions. I had actually counted them correctly, because I knew she technically knew the answers, but her answers---though well written---didn't quite answer the questions as they were asked. She included more info that what was being asked, and didn't include specific answers to the questions. This was the first time I had her do that---before, we had just gone over what was wrong. So hopefully this helped some.

What I have not done is have her take a test open-book. I may have her do that on the next test....or I may give her one more attempt and then do the following open book if there is still no improvement. She is frustrated that she's not doing well on the tests...maybe even more so than I am. I had told her that it would take some getting used to, since it's not something we've done in the past. I DO think we need to get it figured out, because obviously, she will need to have test taking skill in place for college. But at the same time, I know that she's learning the material....she could write an excellent paper on the chapters....but for some reason, she just can't answer someone else's point blank questions. That's just what she'll have to work on over the next year and a half .

Thanks for the open book idea though. I don't think she'd *want* to do that just yet, because she's determined she's "gonna get this". But I think I will encourage her to try this if the next test doesn't go much better.

[Julie in MN]

You have some great strategies there! And kuddos to your dd for taking up the challenge of improving herself

One other thing that I thought about was evaluating wrong answers. I know it helped with ACT-prep (multiple choice questions). In well-written tests, most wrong answers are wrong for particular reasons. So, if the student can identify some of the obviously wrong answers, she will have an easier time selecting the correct answer.

If she is struggling instead with short answers or essays, rather than multiple choice, then you seem to be on the right track with evaluating the question and what exactly it was asking - in other words, not just helping her find the right answer, but also figuring out what was wrong with her wrong answer.

Maybe you could give her a history credit based on knowledge of history by oral exam, and then extra credit in learning to think like a test writer, eh?!

Julie

[TriciaMR]

Just wanted to encourage you. My oldest is in 10th grade, doing WHL this year (Has been doing MFW since 3rd grade). And every now and then on a question for history, her answer will either have too much of not the right information, or not enough information for a good answer.

When I see it, we go over the answer and try to figure out what she was thinking vs. what the answer key is telling us. Sometimes, after reading the text, I feel her answer was good enough. Other times she totally missed the point.

Just wanted to encourage you that it does happen to other people's children, too.

[MelissaB]

I like the idea of doing an open-book test for a week or two. Every author/writer of textbooks is a little different. A few weeks of open-book tests may help her get a "feel" for what this particular author is looking for. She'll take off soon!

[K Rod]

For everyone grading/correcting these US History tests, there are a few errors in the Tests as well as in the Answer Keys.

Chapter 2 Test Answer Key #46 change “Romanist” (in the answer) to “Roman Catholic.”
Chapter 7 Test Answer Key #28 change answer to “the Preamble.”
Chapter 12 TEST #42 add “settlers,” after “explorers,”.
Chapter 18 Test Answer Key #40 change the correct answer choice to choice C
Chapter 18 Test Answer Key #41 change the correct answer choice to choice B.
Chapter 19 TEST #24 change the statement to “Germany’s promise that it would resume following international law”
Chapter 22 TEST #33 change “country” to “region.”
Chapter 27 Test Answer Key #42 change the answer to “C” (“obstruction of justice”).

This info has been obtained from BJU Press directly. They offer this link for all corrections in this set of US History materials
http://www.bjupress.com/resources/herit ... orrections

Please note : These corrections apply to the 4th Edition.

Thanks for sharing that! BJU seems pretty good about posting errata right away.

[RachelT]

Hello! I'm looking ahead at US History 1 and 2 as my oldest is wrapping up World History. I would like to know the reason behind combining Government and Economics in with the High School years 3 and 4 and dividing up the US history over those two years. I've looked through the archives and read the posts there about US History, but nothing really addresses this. I would like to understand this a little better. Does it help with CLEP test preparation? Thank you.

Reply from Julie - Staff » Tue May 09, 2017 10:30 am
Hi Rachel,

U.S. History to 1877 begins with the early explorers and founding colonies, and then proceeds through the war for independence. Eventually students come to the very complex and amazing process that led to the forming of our country's Constitution, near the end of the 1700s.

At that point, it is a natural move to begin studying government. The first book we use for studying government is Never Before In History, which focuses on the roots of our Constitution, going further back in time than U.S. history and showing parts of original documents that relate to our constitution. Then the second book we use for studying government goes on to look at government today - nationally, internationally, and locally.

Then, students finish up the school year by completing the first 0.5 credit in U.S. History, which goes through the Civil War and reconstruction. My family did not do CLEP testing (we had dual credit courses available to us), but the CLEP test for History of the United States I: Early Colonization to 1877 fits very nicely at this point.

The following year, students first complete the 2nd semester of U.S. History and then do a semester of Economics. 12th graders are heading out into the world of adulthood, which is a good time to ensure understanding of current events and economics.

Does that help? There are many ways to organize these subjects, but this way works very well.

Julie