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Choosing A Sequence Through NP Courses

Here's What We Recommend

The NP offers courses in history and other social studies and humanities areas, and our catalog is always growing. Here is a generic recommended course sequence for your consideration. These recommendations are based on when and where certain skills are introduced and developed, and on age-appropriate workloads and reading levels, but they should still be seen as guidelines, not prescriptions.

Grades 9-10:

  • US1 and US2: These courses ease students into reading online, taking notes, and reading primary and secondary sources. In addition to earning American History credit students will also earn credit in Historical Methods and Composition. See our article on Workload and Credits for more on course interdisciplinary design. These courses are one semester each, or one full school year to complete the set
  • US3 and US4: In these courses students graduate from daily structure and prescription in their note taking, and transition to taking notes on a blank page. Their source readings grow in length and complexity, and they earn supplementary credits in Rhetoric and Logic and America Literature. These courses are one semester each, or one full school year to complete the set
    • * High school students only need one year of American History to graduate, but our program will actually take them two years. This is by design, but we recognize that it doesn't work for everyone. We've tried to compensate by building in extra supplemental credits to be claimed as you go, but users should also feel free to (1) take a one-year course that focuses on modern American History (US3&4), since they probably took some version of early American History in middle school, or (2) to take all four semesters in one year but edit out certain units or credits in order to make the content manageable 
  • Pirates: This is a good introductory-level course for students. The subject matter will engage some students all by itself, the reading level is accessible, the course is relatively short, and the writing assignment is structured and sequenced. This is a one-semester course
  • The History of Free Speech: This is also a good introductory-level course for students. Like Pirates, the reading level is accessible, the course is relatively short, and the document readings will engage them with themes and thinkers that familiar from popular culture and public discourse. This is a one-semester course
  • The History of Alaska: This is a required course in Alaska, but of course any students interested in an accessible history elective can enroll. This course is appropriate for ninth-grade students, but can be taken anytime throughout high school. This is a one-semester course

Grades 11-12:

  • World 1 and World 2: World 1 breaks the world into sixteen regions, and focuses student attention on each region as it develops and begins to interact with other regions, until by World 2 the regional boundaries begin to disintegrate and the world becomes more recognizably global. The coverage is comprehensive and the developments are complex, so we recommend this course for more mature students who have already fully-transitioned from middle-school to high-school expectations. In addition to earning World History credit students will also earn a full credit in Humanities. See our article on Workload and Credits for more on course interdisciplinary design
  • Media Literacy: This course is most appropriate for students who are beginning to think about life after high school. The course targets skills in information literacy—understanding bias and credibility, understanding the impact of incentives and technology, making judgments between sources and claims, recognizing and contextualizing partisanship and motivated reasoning, strategies for strategically paying attention and strategically ignoring, and much more. Students who are beginning to independently engage with the media, or who are preparing to be independent adults in a time of information chaos, are in the best position to get the most out of this course

    Contact us anytime with specific questions about your context and students: support@nomadicprofessor.com