Critical Thinking in United States History Series Book 1:  Colonies to Constitution Book 2:  New Republic to Civil War Book 3:  Reconstruction to Progressivism Book 4:  Spanish-American War to Vietnam PLUS Teacher's Guides by Kevin O'Reilly Book 1:  130 pages  TG:  148 pages Book 2:  193 pages  TG:  141 pages Book 3:  197 pages  TG:  148 pages Book 4:  170 pages  TG:  149 pages Yes, you need the Teacher's Guides!   CTUSHS = Critical Thinking in United States History Series

I really, really like this series a lot.  It's a spectacular product!  (Okay, I shouldn't gush because too often that gives people really high expectations--ones that can never be met.  However, I do think that this series is super!)

I hesitate to write this review because we've not finished the first book, but possibly you can learn from my mistakes and figure out a way to put these great products to use in a way that can benefit your student.  I guess I'll start by telling you a little about the product, and then I'll tell you how we have used it and give a few recommendations on how it can be used.

This is a 4-book series that teaches a student to read, analyze, and evaluate history sources critically.  This series is not a stand-alone history program; it's designed to work in conjunction with your own history curriculum with the instructor teaching the lessons that correlate with your own history lessons.  It's a critical thinking curriculum with U. S. History being the subject matter which students use for practicing their new skills.

Each book consists of four or five units.  The first unit in each book contains a "Guide to Critical Thinking."  The corresponding Teacher's Guide contains the worksheets and the instructions on how to implement Unit 1.  Unit 1 contains the instruction in critical thinking.  The following units in the student text contain the lessons where strategies learned in Unit 1 are put to use.  Each unit (after Unit 1) starts out with a few lessons on identifying and evaluating sources, evaluating evidence, determining causes and effects, analyzing generalizations, etc., which usually include historical information.  After that comes the meat of the unit where the student gets to apply what he or she has learned to analyze serious historical questions.

To illustrate:

Lessons are fairly engaging and use source material.  The student usually has to read two (sometimes more) conflicting perspectives of the the topic.  For instance, in Lesson 6 of Book 4, the student is to explore the reasons why President McKinley asked for a Declaration of War against Spain in April 1898.  The student is to read a 1.5 page article by Historian A (with footnotes).  Right after that the student reads the view of Historian B which is about 1 page long.  Four pages of analysis follows.  Since different historians interpret facts differently, conclusions are sometimes greatly varied.  The student is given tools to help him/her evaluate the validity of the conclusions drawn.

We initially started out reading the "Guide to Critical Thinking" (Unit 1) while doing the worksheets the go along with Unit 1.  I know that the TG recommended that we not do that, but it worked well for us.  Once in Unit 2, we found that a few of the lessons recommended that we read a section in the "Guide to Critical Thinking" and do a worksheet in conjunction with the lesson.  Since we had already done that, we just went back and did a 5-10 minute review of the information and went on through the lesson.  For us, this worked really well.  Basically, if you were to use the program as they suggest, a student would start immediately in Unit 2 of each book and then go back to Unit 1 when the TG recommends.  I feel that CTUSHS could have come up with a less confusing way to deal with this.  It really threw me off at first.

Since we're moseying through United States history, it has ended up being difficult to remember to pull the CTUSHS workbook out and do it when we get to each historical event.  So our progress has been in fits and spurts.  We work for a while in CTUSHS until we catch up to where we are in our own history lessons, then quit CTUSHS when we reach topics we've not yet covered.  We have to do this because more often than not the student needs some background information before doing the lessons in CTUSHS.  We couldn't possibly do CTUSHS as a stand alone program.  It needs to be done in conjunction with a U.S. history course.

I think it would have been better to wait until we finished our own studies on the American Revolution before we started doing the American Revolution unit in CTUSHS.  And the same can be said for the previous unit on Exploration and Colonies.  I think we should have been doing each unit all at once since I don't stringing them out over a couple of months is beneficial (even though we are doing that with our regular US History curriculum).  CTUSHS, though, is about critical thinking much more than it is about history, I think, so I like staying a little more focused with CTUSHS.  I also have to keep it in my mind that CTUSHS is "critical thinking" class rather than history; otherwise, I start thinking that we're spending way too much school time on history.

I've seen this series recommended for grade 5 and up.  I must disagree with that.  I would not ever try it with a student less than 13 years old.  Sure some 11 or 12 year olds might be able to understand it, but I do think that a little more mature student will take away a better understanding when all is said and done.  High school and adult would be my recommendation after using it with a 14 year old student.

Your student will probably end up rather tired of this curriculum if you utilize all four volumes of this series.  Unit 1 is repeated verbatim in all four volumes (except for a few instances of slight revision in a couple of spots which makes no appreciable difference in content).  Many of the same exercises are repeated book after book with the main difference being the subject matter.  I believe that mastery of the critical thinking skills could be obtained after using two books; use of all four is unnecessary, I feel.  I suggest buying only one set (student and Teacher's Guide) initially.  Then after using that set, buy another set if you still think more practice would be helpful.

I've spent a good deal of time while writing this review reading portions of these books trying to decide if they build on one another--meaning you must Book One is necessary to understanding Book Two.  We've only done Book One, but I wouldn't mind doing Book Three or Four next.  If they do build on one another, doing Book One and then one of the other three wouldn't be too much trouble.  I'm baffled, however, as to whether it's possible to do Book Four and then Book Two without some difficulty.  It looks like one could do book Four and then Book One, but looks can be deceiving.  I'm sorry that I can't make a more definitive analysis for you.

These books contain the reproduction rights for single-classroom use.  But unless you're ready to copy the complete book or get very organized with your copying, I'd recommend buying a text for each student.  I thought I'd do the copying since we've got a simple copier machine here at home, but my son's workbook is rather confusing.  Trust me, just buy a workbook book for each student if you can possibly afford it.

This series was written with the classroom in mind.  Students are often requested to join together in groups to do some such activity.  If a parent works through the books with the student, then there shouldn't be any unsurmountable problems.  Also, the instructor should expect to use the student's book to read the "Guide to Critical Thinking" (Unit 1) which isn't included in the TG (even though it should be!)

Overall, I would recommend this series as a tool for teaching your students how to think critically.  What's good about this program is that the students get lots of practice with the skills.  There are a lot of programs out there that teach kids critical thinking, but this program really gets the students involved in *applying* these skills to actual historical issues.  Also, I've noticed my son transferring the skills learned in CTUSHS to other areas of life and learning!

Here's what the author, Kevin O'Reilly, says, 

"This [series] is meant to give you a taste of the excitement of historical interpretation and debate.  It is also meant to give you guidance in learning the skills necessary to evaluate conflicting viewpoints.  The goal is to empower you, as citizens in a democratic society, to make decisions for yourself regarding what you read, see, or hear about the issues of tomorrow--issues where there are few easy answers, and where reasonable people disagree."