History & Geography

About this course

Eleventh grade covers the modern era and then asks your student to think about the present. American history begins at Reconstruction and runs through the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, both world wars, the Depression, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, the upheavals of the sixties and seventies, the Reagan years, the decade after the Soviet collapse, September 11, and the polarization of the last two decades. World civilizations starts with the Enlightenment and moves through the Atlantic world, industrialization, European imperialism, the Russian Revolution, the two world wars as global catastrophes, the three totalitarian movements of the twentieth century, decolonization, the Cold War abroad, the rise of the East Asian economies, the institutions of the postwar order, and globalization. Geography is systematic rather than regional this year, taking each theme in turn: geopolitics, trade routes, environment, fresh water, population, resources, borders, culture, cities, agriculture, and transportation.

The remaining strands are where this grade differs most from tenth. The citizenship unit is really an applied Christian ethics course, working through the social contract, conscience, immigration and the welcoming of strangers, free speech, poverty, the family, creation care, and peacemaking. Government becomes constitutional law: the First Amendment, the rights of the accused under the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth, landmark cases, the argument between originalism and judicial activism, modern religious liberty cases, civil disobedience from Acts 5:29, voting as stewardship, running for office, and engaging politics without making an idol of it. Economics is a full macroeconomics sequence covering inflation and unemployment, the Federal Reserve, fiscal policy, the national debt with current figures, trade and tariffs, global poverty, investing, financial planning for adulthood, the biblical law of Jubilee and lending, vocation, and a closing comparison of capitalism and socialism against the kingdom of God. Cultural studies examines postmodernism, cancel culture, identity politics, critical race theory, consumerism, media, music, sports, and celebrity, and current events takes up the Middle East, Russia and Ukraine, China and Taiwan, climate policy, artificial intelligence ethics, medical ethics including abortion, euthanasia, and cloning, persecution, and refugees.

There are 180 lessons in 15 units of twelve, at about 50 minutes each. The last seven units go over the same strands again with new material, adding Tocqueville, the Great Awakening, the Meiji Restoration, the Mongols and the Silk Road, Africa's independence era, and more constitutional law, though several subjects come up more than once across the two passes. A lesson is five to eight paragraphs of college-level analytical prose followed by a ten-question multiple-choice quiz that grades itself. What marks this grade is that it argues rather than merely reports, and it shows its work: the critical race theory lesson states what it judges the framework gets right before saying where it breaks with Scripture, the national debt lesson faults both political parties by name, and the civil disobedience lesson sets Romans 13 against Acts 5:29 and lands on the historic Anabaptist practice of accepting suffering rather than inflicting it.

What the course covers

• Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and the Progressive Era
• The world wars, the Depression, and the Cold War
• Civil Rights, the Reagan years, September 11, and modern polarization
• The Enlightenment, imperialism, revolution, and totalitarianism
• Decolonization, the postwar order, and globalization
• Systematic geography: geopolitics, water, resources, cities, and agriculture
• Constitutional law, landmark cases, and religious liberty
• Civil disobedience, voting, and Christian public service
• Macroeconomics, the Federal Reserve, national debt, and personal investing
• Worldview analysis of postmodernism, identity politics, and consumerism

What your student will be able to do

• Explain how the twentieth century produced the world your student lives in
• Read a constitutional question and identify what is actually at issue
• Weigh a cultural or political framework against Scripture without caricature
• Interpret inflation, unemployment, interest rate, and debt figures
• Build a personal financial plan covering budgeting, saving, and investing
• Explain a current international conflict from its geography and history

Scope and sequence

All 15 units of History & Geography for Grade 11, in the order they are taught.

Every lesson, by title

All 180 lesson titles are listed here — nothing is withheld until you download. Open a unit to read its contents.

One whole lesson, exactly as it comes

This is a real lesson taken from the middle of the course — the teaching text, the practice, the homework, and the first three quiz questions with their answers. It is not a marketing excerpt.

What you will need

Drawn from the materials named across all 180 lessons of this course. Most families already own most of it.