If you’ve been wanting to integrate a study of African American history into your home school but were unsure where to turn for a comprehensive and thoroughly biblical curriculum, your search is over. This excellent product authored by Linda Poling is exactly what its name implies - both a curriculum and a resource guide. Designed for parents and students who like to choose and direct their course of study, this guide exemplifies the concept of flexibility. It could provide the structure for a family unit study or be used as a research/resource companion to other history studies. It could also be a stand-alone Bible study on slavery. A high school student could completely structure his own course and carry it out with little parental involvement. And the list goes on and on.

The 150-page, coil-bound book, revised in 2005, is divided into five tabbed sections: Curriculum for the Family, Resources, Worksheets, Source Documents, and Index. The curriculum section contains charts showing usage of various resources for various age groups along with short introductory paragraphs for each topic. The resources are varied and include biographies, historical fiction, historical events and documentation, as well as biblical studies. Topics are grouped into the following chronological headings: African Background & Slave Trade, Slavery in America, Civil War & Its Aftermath, An Emerging Black Community, and The Civil Rights Movement Forward. The Resources section is extensive and includes books, tapes, CDs and videos/DVD’s, literature study guides, and websites. These resources are listed in several different ways - alphabetically, by historical time periods, and by grade levels.

Really “project” sheets, the worksheets (reproducible for home schools) are not brief fill-in-the-blank exercises but have the stated goal of provoking investigative skills and critical thinking. Just to give you an idea of the breadth, here is a sampling: Plan an African tour (month-long project), African history at a glance (chart), Biblical studies (i.e. slavery in the law of Moses; liberty & freedom in Scriptures), Economics of Slavery (research project), Underground Railroad (reading books, biographies, and making a drinking gourd), John Newton & Amazing Grace (research and study guide). There are forty-one of them, each with designated/suggested grade levels. In the worksheet section of the guide they are listed both by grade level and in alphabetical order. Also included is an answer key for all relevant material.

The source documents section is another gem. Containing a wide variety of related material, you will find all types of material from poems by Phillis Wheatley and a letter to Thomas Jefferson from Benjamin Banneker to the more expected Emancipation Proclamation and 14th Amendment with everything in between, including a listing of Scriptures from both the OT and the NT relating to slavery.

If you put a group of homeschooling mothers together (a co-op, perhaps) in the same room along with this curriculum guide and started brainstorming possible uses and applications, you might have to provide overnight accommodations! This is a meaty, well-organized, extremely usable resource. However, it doesn’t do all the work for you. The homeschooling mom (or group of moms) will still need to decide on the scope of usage but just having a comprehensive and thorough compilation of the possibilities is much, much more than half of the “battle.” ~ Janice