Sophomore Highschool History Class

Most sophomore high school classes that I know of are world history. My school set it up that freshman year you started your two-year global history track. I can't remember up until what point we did, but maybe the Renaissance? I truly can't remember. Sophomore year you had the option of being in a regular, honors or AP (Advanced Placement) class. The first two picked up where you left off in world history and AP started from the beginning and looked at the material in a different way. Both ended up at modern times.

When I was in high school (long ago), there was a requirement to take one year of American history sometime during the three years of high school. I believe I took it as a sophomore (along with geometry, biology, PE, English, and business).

It was the basic American history class, with more time spent on the early settlement of the "new world", the conflicts leading up to the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War, the Constitution, and the Civil War, than other time periods. We did spend some time on WWII, which was unusual--it's seems like in American history classes I'd taken before (such as in the 8th grade) we never got to the 20th Century before the school year ended.

If you google sophomore history class you will see that many high schools have course information online. It seems to vary.

Been a while since I was in HS (eek!), but here's how my school went.

(8th Grade - US History 1500 - 1865)
Freshman- US History 1865-present
Sophomore - World Geography
Junior - World History (dropped after my freshman year)//Anthropology(1st Sem)/Advanced Geography (2nd Sem)
Senior - Current Events

You can kind of skew it to be what you want ... In my high school, sophomore year was Western Civilization. In my case, it was also crossed with an English class. So, while we were learning about Greece, we were reading Antigone, etc. I remember studying Greece, Egypt, Italy, France and England. We talked about 20th century stuff too. We skipped around a lot - but I also took elective classes, 20th Century History and European History, where we talked about a lot of the same stuff. We also talked about Greece my freshman year in English class when we read the Odyssey. It's kind of a mixed bag.

I still have my textbooks for Western Civ and English. They were ordering new ones for the next year so I kept mine.

When I attended high school, the sophomore history teacher was our head basketball coach. He leaned on the lectern for fifty minutes and read the same chapter he had assigned us to read the day before. It was some condensed history of the Americas. I was tall and got good grades.

When I taught in high school, things had changed, The sophomore history teacher coached track. The book he read aloud was a condensed presentation of western civilization, which included its spread to the Americas. The coach and I team-taught. I assited with and graded history projects on their written merits. The coached tossed submissions down a stairwell. The ones sliding farthest, the heavier ones with more pages and perhaps maps razored from library books and pasted therein, got better history marks.

I was just a sophomore last year so if you have any questions you can PM me.

Our school takes world history as freshmen and american history as sophomores. It all depends on what part of the year it is. At the beginning it would be the first explorers, revolutionary war, civil war. Towards the end it would be more of McCarthy, Nixon, Great Depression, World War 2, the last presidents. And if it's a recent history class they might even get to 9/11.

I still have all my old assignments around here somewhere...I haven't gotten around to throwing them away yet.

When I was in high school, it was split into semesters (like college).
Freshman year: First semester, elective (World History I), second semester American Government.
Sophomore year: First semester, economics. Second semester, no history
Junior year: American History (Civil War to Vietnam)
Senior year: AP European History (Renaissance to present day)

I hope this helps!

You had to take Gov as a freshmen? I think I'm taking that next year or as a senior...

Sophomores here have American Government.

It varies from place to place. Here, students have American History, Part II in 10th grade....."Modern" American History from late 1890's through the present.

When I was in HS in the late 1960s (and earlier in lower grades), one thing I noticed was that the history classes would run out of year before they ran out of history. We heard over and over and over about the Revolutionalry War and the Civil War but much less about WWI and WWII and the Great Depression. It's unfortunate since 20th Century American History is really interesting.

I know a lot of schools teach about VietNam, but I don't know what they teach. I wonder if Watergate ever gets covered. Hmmmm.

I wonder if Watergate ever gets covered

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Yes it does, at least at my school.

I tried to post a second ago, but I guess it didn't go through...

My mother teaches high school history. She covers US History from Reconstruction to present day with the sophomore classes. However, I think it varies from school to school. Some will cover World History and others will cover US History (more modern US History, though -- everything up to the Civil War is usually covered in lower grades).

When I was in HS, Watergate wasn't history . . . it was the evening news.

Michigan just changed the guidelines so that US History starts with 1865 and goes until "present" As a history teacher, I try to get us into the 80s.

World History is not a requirement, yet, in Michigan, but I think the 2011 grads are now required to take it.

It depends on the school as to when students would take history. Most of the ones I get failed US History their freshman year (along with everything else, hence the reason they're at the alternative school.)

Each school varies in what and when. It depends on the size of the school as well as the composition of the student body. My high school wasn't that small, but we barely offered any courses beyond the core. A slightly larger school in the county offered all sorts of courses.

I think this is one of those that you can write as you see fit. (If you're weak on history, I like the U.S. History for Dummies book... in fact, that's the "text book" I use in my history class. The kids ACTUALLY read it! And don't even complain about it.)

*lives in michigan too*

Michigan just changed the guidelines so that US History starts with 1865 and goes until "present" As a history teacher, I try to get us into the 80s.

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SERIOUSLY? So all that about the explorers and the revolutionary war is now being left out? So I learned all that for nothing??

World History is not a requirement, yet, in Michigan, but I think the 2011 grads are now required to take it.

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I was required to take it last year and will graduate in 2011...but that might just be my school.

(If you're weak on history, I like the U.S. History for Dummies book... in fact, that's the "text book" I use in my history class. The kids ACTUALLY read it! And don't even complain about it.)

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Wish I'd known that last year.