Book Description

UNLIKE TRADITIONAL TEXTBOOKS that can overwhelm the reader with countless facts to absorb, the Student's Friend Concise World History highlights the most important developments of world history in a clear and concise manner that is capable of being comprehended by the human mind. Teachers have successfully used The Student's Friend in homeschool, middle school, high school, and college in the United States and abroad. Part 1 covers the period from prehistory to the year 1500; Part 2, the period from 1500 to the present. In contrast to other concise histories that may focus on impersonal historical processes, the Student's Friend includes men and women who helped to shape history and who illustrate timeless aspects of human nature. WHY A CONCISE HISTORICAL NARRATIVE? The Student's Friend is designed to be consistent with findings from cognitive science that emphasize learning the most important principles and concepts of a school discipline, rather than learning large quantities of superficial facts that are likely to be forgotten shortly after the exam is over. The respected Bradley Commission on History in Schools has said, "The amount of time required to achieve student engagement and genuine comprehension of significant issues will necessitate leaving out much that is 'covered' by the usual text." CONCISENESS CAN BRING CLARITY. Cognitive psychologist Frank N. Dempster has written, "Many texts are so packed with facts, names, and details that the real point of the lesson is often obscured." One of the greatest benefits of a concise historical narrative is the clarity it can bring to a student's understanding of history by focusing on essential knowledge rather than on extensive, sometimes confusing, and often-trivial detail. ELIMINATES GAPS AND DISCONTINUITIES. Teachers can't adequately cover all the information contained in standard thousand-page textbooks, so they commonly skip around in the textbook, which can leave big holes in the historical narrative. The Student's Friend is designed to include no more information than students can realistically cover during a standard high school course. Because the picking and choosing has been carefully done and logically sequenced, continuity is maintained and gaps eliminated. BALANCES BREADTH AND DEPTH. The concise historical narrative leaves time in the curriculum for additional learning activities such as research papers, multimedia presentations, source-analysis activities, and simulations, a practice sometimes called "postholing." The narrative performs a unifying function like a fence that gives shape to the landscape and provides the connecting fabric between events, while postholes are occasions to dig more deeply into the human dimensions of history-to explore how events of the past affected people's lives then and now. The subject matter of world history is so vast that it can be a difficult subject to grasp and to teach. Teachers and students alike can benefit from the understandable picture of history provided by the Student's Friend Concise World History.