Once Upon a Riverbend

Weeks 1-4 Columbus

Read Chapters 1 and 2 in Story of America.

Copywork 1:

Just when the people of Europe had come to depend upon certain Asiatic goods, the supply was suddenly cut off.
Of course this did not happen in a day or a week or even a single year. But those products which for more than two hundred years had flowed westward in such complete and uninterrupted abundance now began to disappear from the European markets. (page 23)

Copywork 2:

The overland route to the profitable East was gradually being closed. Very well. Then they would look for a new road by way of the South or the West. The undertaking, entailing a voyage across uncharted seas, looked about as hopeless as an airplane trip to the moon in our own time. Indeed, the practical obstacles were so immense that they could only be overcome by a dreamer. (pages 25-26)

Copywork 3:

On the third of August of the year 1492 Columbus set sail for the Azores with three ships, the largest of which was smaller than a respectable sized ferry-boat and had been built for the coastwise trade with Flanders.
Twice more he sighted land, the Canary Islands and Teneriffe. Then he boldly pushed forth into the ultimate confines of the unknown. The voyage lasted a little over two months. On the night between the eleventh and the twelfth of October of the year 1492 a light was seen. It was a watch-fire of the "Indians." The next morning the first meeting between the white man and the copper-colored Indian took place. (pages 37-38)

Copywork 4:

Three times more he wearily crossed the ocean. Some day, some day, surely, he would find the gap between those miserable reefs and promontories that would lead him directly to his goal.
But he never did.
Worn out by hardships and hunger and thirst and the ills of the tropics, his own body turned traitor, as so many of his captains had done before.
Columbus died on the twentieth day of May of the year 1506. (page 38)

Mapwork 1: Sketch the current (late 1400's) routes to Asia.

Mapwork 2: Sketch a map of the world as it was known in the late 1400's.

Mapwork 3: Sketch Columbus's first journey.

Mapwork 4: Sketch Columbus's next three journeys.

World of Columbus and Sons

Lesson 1: Read pages 1-23. Be able to answer BF discussion questions 2, 3, 5, 6, 7

Lesson 2: Read pages 24-64. Be able to answer BF discussion questions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Lesson 3: Read pages 65-86. Be able to answer BF discussion questions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Lesson 4: Read pages 90-114. Be able to answer BF discussion questions 2, 3, 4

Geography - Florida, Georgia

Do mapping exercises from Trail Guide to U.S. Geography
Memorize: location, capital, abbreviation, spellings, important rivers, mountains, cities
Read:
Island Eyes - Lee
Everglades - George
Folk Stories of the South (Florida Stories and Georgia Stories) - Jagendorf

Additional Reading Options:

History of US Book 1: Cpts. 15-18
An Elementary History of Our Country - Cpt. 1
Pedro's Journal - Conrad
Columbus - D'Aulaire
Where Do You Think You Are Going Christopher Columbus? - Fritz
Year of Columbus: 1492 - Foster
If you were there in 1492 - Brenner
Amerigo Vespucci - Baker
Strawberry Girl - Lenski

Writing Assignment:

3rd - Two half page narrations (1 history and 1 geography OR 2 history) each on a theme of interest from your readings.
Spelling, grammar, and neatness are important.
4th - Two one page narrations (1 history and 1 geography OR 2 history) each on a theme of interest from your readings.
Spelling, grammar and neatness are important.
5th - One essay on Columbus (must include a thesis) and one essay (history or geography) on a theme of interest from your readings.
Spelling, grammar, and all basics of essay writing learned to date are important. Final copies must be typed.

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Weeks 5-8 Conquistadors

Read chapters 3 and 4 in Story of America.

Copywork 1:

Most unfortunately for [the Indians] the discovery of Columbus came at the very moment when the Spaniards, after about six hundred years of uninterrupted warfare, had just driven the last of the Mohammedan caliphs out of their own country. Spain was still full of that strange crusading spirit which is ready to commit the most hideous of crimes in the name of the most exalted of religions. Men like Cortez and Pizarro, who with a handful of highly drilled cutthroats destroyed Indian empires as large as France, Spain and England combined, could never have accomplished this had they not felt themselves to be the lineal descendants of the Cid and those other chosen messengers of the All Highest. (page 45)

Copywork 2:

The Conquistadores of course were highly picturesque fellows. Their tales of heroism and sacrifice lost nothing in the telling and when we read of their exploits, their marches across swamps and mountains, their profound and bloodthirsty devotion, we are very apt to forget that this piety was strangely interwoven with a ruthless greed for gold. A desire to serve God and the heathen may have carried a few simple friars across the much feared ocean. But the mass of the newcomers merely wanted to get rich and wanted to get rich quick. (page 46)

Copywork 3:

In the year 1513 a rumor rapidly spread through the European shipyards that the problem had been solved; that a direct water route to China had been found. True enough, but the glittering waves of which Balboa had just taken possession in the name of the King of Spain were separated from the Atlantic Ocean by several hundred miles of insurmountable rock and volcanoes. (pages 49-51)

Copywork 4:

Meanwhile Vasco da Gama had at last discovered the direct eastern route to Calicut. The long and dangerous voyage from Cadiz and Palos to San Domingo and Cuba, with the uncertain prospect of "finding something," seemed thereafterward an absurd and superfluous adventure. By going due southward and following the road laid down a quarter of a century before by Prince Henry one could (with the exception of a few short stretches of water) remain entirely within sight of land and could go on shore for fresh supplies at least once every three or four days. "Terra America" therefore lost most of its interest as a geographical problem with a practical economic future. (page 51)

Mapwork 1: Sketch the routes of Pizarro and Cortes. Include the locations of any Native American civilizations.

Mapwork 2: Sketch the routes of two more Conquistadors. Include the locations of any Native American civilizations.

Mapwork 3: Sketch the route of Balboa. Include the locations of any Native American civilizations.

Mapwork 4: Sketch the route of Vasco da Gama.

World of Columbus and Sons

Lesson 1: Read pages 115-137. Answer BF discussion questions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Lesson 2: Read pages 138-168. Answer BF discussion questions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Lesson 3: Read pages 173-205. Answer BF discussion questions 2, 3, 4

Lesson 4: Read pages 206-242. Answer BF discussion questions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Geography - North Carolina, South Carolina

Do mapping exercises from Trail Guide to U.S. Geography
Memorize: location, capital, abbreviation, spellings, important rivers, mountains, cities
Read:
Folk Stories of the South (North Carolina Stories and South Carolina Stories) - Jagendorf

Additional Readings:

History of US Book 1: Cpts. 19-30
An Elementary History of Our Country: Cpt. 2
Exploring the World - Macdonald
Magellan - Hynson
Around the World in a Hundred Years - Fritz
Walk the World's Rim - Baker
Conquista! - Bulla
Sing Down the Moon - O'Dell
By Right of Conquest - Henty
El Cid - McCaughrean
The Jack Tales - Chase

Writing Assignment:

3rd - Two half page narrations (1 history and 1 geography OR 2 history) each on a theme of interest from your readings.
Spelling, grammar, and neatness are important.
4th - Two one page narrations (1 history and 1 geography OR 2 history) each on a theme of interest from your readings.
Spelling, grammar and neatness are important.
5th - One essay on a Spanish conquistador of your choice (must include a thesis) and one essay (history or geography) on a theme of interest
from your readings.
Spelling, grammar, and all basics of essay writing learned to date are important. Final copies must be typed.

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Weeks 9 - 12 New France, Roanoke Island, Spanish Armada

Read chapters five, six and seven in Story of America.

Copywork 1:

Only a man who believed desperately in his own cause would have undertaken the task of trying to find the route to India by way of the Canadian wilderness. Yet that is exactly what Champlain and some of his successors did.
They were a brave lot. They did not bother to take a large retinue of soldiers with them. As a rule they were accompanied by one or two other white men and depended upon the natives through whose territory they passed to provide them with the necessary number of porters and paddlers. (page 58)

Copywork 2:

But alas! even the enthusiasm of such men as Champlain and his equally famous successors, Marquette, Joliet, Heenepin and La Salle, who traveled overland from the Straits of Belle Isle to the Gulf of Mobile (via the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, the Ohio and Mississippi rivers) failed to convince the French monarchy that an investment in American real estate would be more profitable to them in the long run than the dreary wars of dynastic aggrandizement upon which they wasted all their money and all their men. (pages 58-60)

Copywork 3:

It seemed that de Coligny had gone too far south and Sir Humphrey too far north. Fortunately at that moment Sir Walter Raleigh returned from an expedition to the West and reported that the ideal territory for a prosperous colony was to be found midway between Florida and Canada, a true earthly Paradise which he had called Virginia after the Virgin Queen, for whose glory he had sent so many Spaniards to Kingdom Come.
A couple of unseaworthy tubs were duly loaded with prospective settlers and under command of Sir Walter's cousin, Sir Richard Grenville, this fleet safely crossed the ocean and deposited its cargo upon an island at the mouth of the Roanoke River.
This time it seemed that success was to be certain.
But the colony disappeared.
It disappeared utterly and absolutely.
It disappeared as mysteriously as a ship lost at sea. (page 70)

Copywork 4:

In the year 1588 Spain decided to make an end to all further heresies by a crusade that should for all time destroy the power of England and Holland. A fleet of one hundred and thirty-two vessels was assembled in the harbor of Lisbon and an army of sixty thousand men was collected in the seaports of Flanders. The plan was to send the fleet to Dunkirk, there to provide it with pilots and war material, and then begin a systematic invasion of the countries on both sides of the North Sea.... Then nature came to the rescue of the heretics. A series of unprecedented gales blew the Armada out of its course and caused such havoc among the Spanish galleons that less than half of them ever reached the ports of departure. (page 72)

Mapwork 1: Sketch the route of Champlain.

Mapwork 2: Sketch the northern routes of two of Champlain's successors.

Mapwork 3: Sketch the routes of Coligny, Sir Humphrey and Sir Richard Grenville

Mapwork 4: Sketch the plan of attack of the Spanish Armada of 1588.

World of Columbus and Sons

Lesson 1: Read pages 243-280. Answer BF discussion questions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Lesson 2: Read pages 285-320. Answer BF discussion questions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Lesson 3: Read pages 321-359. Answer BF discussion questions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Lesson 4: Read pages 360-400. Answer BF discussion questions 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Geography - Virginia, Kentucky

Do mapping exercises from Trail Guide to U.S. Geography
Memorize: location, capital, abbreviation, spellings, important rivers, mountains, cities
Read:
Folk Stories of the South (Virginia Stories) - Jagendorf
Yankee Doodle's Cousins (Chapters 10, 11, 12) - Malcolmson

Additional Reading:

History of US Book 1: Chapters 31-39
An Elementary History of Our Country: Chapter 3
Drake - Guy
Under Drake's Flag - Henty

Writing Assignment:

3rd - Two half page narrations (1 history and 1 geography OR 2 history) each on a theme of interest from your readings.
Spelling, grammar, and neatness are important.
4th - Two one page narrations (1 history and 1 geography OR 2 history) each on a theme of interest from your readings.
Spelling, grammar and neatness are important.
5th - Two essays (with thesis) each on a theme of interest from your readings.
Spelling, grammar, and all basics of essay writing learned to date are important. Final copies must be typed.