The Best American History Homeschool Curriculum? Why We Chose Nomadic Professor for High School History

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Inside: Looking for a U.S. history curriculum that actually teaches your teen to think? In this deep dive, I share our experience with Nomadic Professor’s American History Parts 3 & 4 a rigorous, secular homeschool history curriculum that goes far beyond names and dates. We’ll explore how it teaches analysis, document-based thinking, and real academic skills and why it might just be the best way to cover modern American history for older students.

As a European using a U.S.-based high school program to homeschool, I had one clear goal when it came to history: I didn’t want to add another dry, 1,000-page U.S. history textbook filled with names, dates, and standardized worksheets.

I wasn’t looking to just cover history. I was looking for something more, something that would actually teach Marc to think, to question, and to connect the past—from early American history to modern American history—with the world he’s growing up in.

We needed history with a heartbeat.

A couple of years ago, I discovered a brilliant high school history curriculum and I wrote a full review with an overview of Nomadic Professor’s history courses. We didn’t really use it back then since Marc was still young, but I kept it saved in my ever-growing list of mental tabs for later. And that time has come.

Now that we’re gearing up for 9th grade, I decided to revisit their American History homeschool curriculum. And I have to admit—it’s still one of the few homeschool curricula I consider truly top-tier. (Right up there with IEW for writing and grammar and Mr. D Math for well… math).

Back when I first looked inside the program, some courses were still in progress. But now that they’ve finalized the American History homeschool curriculum, I want to take you further inside the experience.

Because this isn’t just “the next part of the series.” These final two courses of the American History take everything up a notch. They’ve shown me just how deliberately and progressively this program was designed. The structure, the thinking, the skills—especially for college-bound teens—feel like real academic training, not just homeschool content.

So in this post, I’m not going to rehash what I already said. Instead, I’ll show you:

• What makes the Nomadic Professor American History Curriculum Parts 3 & 4 different
• Why this curriculum works for students who crave challenge and meaning
• And how it’s helping Marc (and me) see U.S. history through a much deeper lens, one rooted in discernment, complexity, and ownership

I’ll also address some common concerns I’ve heard from other homeschoolers, and hopefully show you why I amd so excited about THIS type of history, taught exactly this way.

Because yes, it would have been much easier to go with a generic American history curriculum to fill out some checklists. But I don’t homeschool to fill checklists.
I homeschool to teach my son how to learn, how to discern, how to think for himself and to keep that quiet, brilliant curiosity of his intact.

Pin this image to read the article later. 📌

What Is the Nomadic Professor?

The Nomadic Professor is a secular, academically rigorous high school history program created by college professor and historian Dr. W. Kesler Jackson and high school teacher Nate Noorlander with one goal in mind: to teach students how to think historically.

But calling it just a “history curriculum” feels too small. It’s more like a guided apprenticeship in how to think like a historian: analyzing sources, identifying bias, and drawing your own conclusions.

Here’s how the program delivers its content and why it stands out from all the other high school history curricula out there:

• On-location video lectures filmed at historical sites around the world
• Structure terms that build historical thinking step by step
• Document-based lessons using both primary and secondary sources
• Scaffolded writing assignments to help students construct arguments
• Optional tracks (standard, content-only, advanced/AP) to match your academic goals
• Built-in review + reflection to reinforce thinking, not just retention (perfect for sparking Socratic discussion or preparing for AP-level reasoning)

What I love most is how the program is designed to work with how teens actually learn. Instead of passive reading or pre-scripted answers, this curriculum gives them tools to explore, question, and connect the past to what’s happening now.

And it’s not just the format that impressed me, it’s the intentionality behind it. Every unit feels carefully layered, like it’s training your teen’s brain to go one step deeper. This isn’t about memorizing names and dates. It’s about developing skills they’ll use in college and beyond.

What Courses Does Nomadic Professor Offer?

The core of the program is the four-part American History series, that spans early American history through modern American history, touching on everything from the colonial period to the Cold War and beyond:

• Part 1: Liberty or Death – Colonization through the early republic (including the New World, Native Americans, and the foundations of the Revolutionary War)
• Part 2: The House Dividing – Westward expansion through the Civil War and Reconstruction (highlighting key historical figures and how the American Civil War reshaped national identity)
• Part 3: Monsters to Destroy – Post-Reconstruction through WWII
• Part 4: A Great Consolidation – Cold War to the early 2020s

I previously shared an overview of Parts 1 & 2 in this post. Today, I’m focusing on Parts 3 & 4, which are the final courses in the American History sequence, and arguably the most advanced.

They also offer:

And soon (fingers crossed!) World History is on the way. It’s still in development, but I’m seriously hoping it’s ready before Marc finishes high school. If it holds up to the standard set by their U.S. history courses, it will be the first world history curriculum I’m genuinely excited about. As a side note, though, we enjoyed BookShark’s literature-based history for middle school a lot.

Inside the Nomadic Professor’s American History Homeschool Curriculum

The Nomadic Professor American History homeschool curriculum is designed as a four-part series, intended to span two full years of high school. Each part represents one semester, so students complete two courses per year to earn a full U.S. History credit.

I’ve already reviewed Parts 1 & 2 in detail in this post, where I covered the program’s unique structure, the use of structure terms, on-location lectures, and its academic approach to historical thinking. If you’re unfamiliar with how the curriculum works overall, I highly recommend starting there.

In this post, I’ll focus on their newest additions, Parts 3 & 4, which pick up where the earlier courses left off and, in many ways, take everything to the next level.

These final two courses cover the period from the late 1800s to the early 2020s and explore some of the most globally relevant, politically complex, and ideologically charged moments in American history.

But again, it’s not just what they cover, it’s HOW they cover it that sets this curriculum apart. You’re not just moving from one historical event to the next. You’re building a framework for thinking, and every component of the course serves that larger purpose.

How Each American History Nomadic Professor Course Is Structured

Once you reach Parts 3 and 4, the curriculum shifts. The expectations are higher. The themes are heavier. And the questions it asks your teen to wrestle with? They’re no longer historical curiosities but deeply relevant to the world we live in right now.

• 10 Units Per Course

Each unit spans less than a decade of history and is divided into 5 thoughtful sections:

• 1.0 Preview Session – A short intro that sets the stage and introduces the core themes.
• 1.1 to 1.4 Core Lessons – These build out the unit’s narrative through thematic lessons that integrate historical events, structure terms, and guiding questions.
• 1.5 Document-Based Lesson – A deep dive into source analysis and media literacy, often guided by Nate Norland. This is where students practice evaluating bias, reliability, and context. (A great way to expose homeschool students to primary and secondary sources across different time periods)

At the end of each course, there’s a unit test and over 40 quizzes (with detailed feedback) that reinforce understanding as students go.

• Built-In Support for Students and Parents

The Nomadic Professor doesn’t just hand over a bunch of videos and call it a day. They’ve put real thought into supporting different learning styles and making life easier for homeschoolers, especially parents who want something rigorous without micromanaging every detail.

But here’s where it gets interesting: Parts 3 and 4 offer very different levels of support. And that’s intentional.

Whether your child is independent or needs some scaffolding, these resources let you customize the learning experience while keeping academic integrity intact.

And honestly? That’s rare.

• Methodology that Encourages Thinking, Not Just Recall

The structure isn’t just there for pacing, it’s meant to shape how students think.

• Lessons are built around open-ended questions to trigger active recall and deeper analysis.
• Students are encouraged to “teach the wall”—a strategy similar to Mr. D Math’s approach to “teach the parent”—by explaining what they learned aloud as a way to reinforce understanding.
• Every lesson includes audio, video, and written text, supporting all learning styles.

This multi-modal format means your teen isn’t passively absorbing information, they’re interacting with it in multiple ways.

• Structure Exercises

Each session ends with what Nomadic Professor calls a structure exercise, a unique tool that helps:

• Memorize key concepts and structure terms
• Connect ideas across lessons
• Organize complex historical content into patterns

It’s essentially a list of key structure terms (like ideological shift, political realignment, economic transformation) that students have encountered in that lesson. They use these terms to summarize, organize, and connect ideas across time.

Instead of just memorizing disconnected facts, they’re building a mental framework, a map of how history works and how events influence one another.

It’s honestly one of the smartest ways I’ve seen to reinforce retention and teach kids how to recognize patterns. And by the end of the course, they don’t just “know what happened” they can actually explain why it happened and how it fits into the broader picture.

By the end of the course, students aren’t just memorizing facts. They’re seeing the bigger picture, how events interlock and influence each other across time.

After walking through Parts 3 and 4, this time as part of our actual high school plan, I realized something: this isn’t just the most rigorous and the best American history homeschool curriculum for high school I’ve encountered so far. It’s also the most human.

It doesn’t flatten complex events into neat timelines. It doesn’t offer prepackaged opinions. Instead, it invites teens to wrestle with history, to take a stance, to change their mind, to read between the lines, and to think deeply about where we came from and where we’re headed.

That’s what I wanted when I started looking for a program years ago. I didn’t want to tick a box labeled “U.S. History.” I wanted a curriculum that would help Marc become someone who can see power, question framing, and think critically in an age that demands all three.

And this one does.

What Makes the Nomadic Professor American History Homeschool Curriculum So Powerful

Most high school history programs try to make things easier—cleaner timelines, simplified themes, maybe a few textbook questions tacked on for good measure. But what if that’s actually the problem?

What makes the Nomadic Professor curriculum so powerful is that it doesn’t strip history down. It slows it down. It adds layers.

It gives students the tools to step into the messiness of American history—with all its contradictions, debates, and unfinished questions—and come out of it with clarity and ownership.

Here’s why it works so well:f builds thinking, voice, and ownership without the rigidity or fluff of a typical high school textbook:

🔹 Big Framing Questions That Anchor the Course

Each American History course is built around a powerful, open-ended question pulled directly from real historical quotes that invites reflection and re-evaluation as students move through each lesson.

• Part 3: “Should America become an empire?”
  (A nod to John Quincy Adams’ caution against foreign entanglements and “monsters to destroy.”)
• Part 4: “Has America traded liberty for power?”
  (Framed by Patrick Henry’s warning about centralized power and lost freedoms.)

These aren’t throwaway essay prompts. They’re revisited again and again through every lens—military, social, political, and economic—and students are asked to form an opinion using evidence and historical reasoning. It’s real academic writing prep in disguise.

🔹 Structure Terms That Shape Thinking

This is one of Nomadic Professor’s most original features and honestly, I haven’t seen anything quite like it in other homeschool history programs.

Each unit introduces 1–2 structure terms that act like intellectual scaffolding, concepts such as:

• Imperial framing
• Moral justification
• Consolidation
• Exceptionalism
• Structure vs. agency

Students don’t just learn these as vocabulary but apply them to documents, events, and reflection questions. By the end of the course, these become part of their internal thinking process.

🔹 On-Location Video Lectures That Ground You in Place

Forget monotone lectures in a book-filled office. Dr. Jackson teaches in the field, standing on the streets of Vietnam, in front of U.S. military bases, or at presidential libraries.

These videos are:

• Visually grounded in the real world
• Narrated with energy and academic insight
• Short enough to keep attention, but rich enough to provoke thought

They don’t just “tell history” they invite students to see it unfold and then question what they saw.

🔹 Document-Based Lessons (DBQs) That Train the Mind

After each unit’s core lessons, students tackle a document-based session that walks them through a carefully curated mix of sources, such as:

• Speeches, newspaper editorials, and policy memos
• Propaganda posters and political cartoons
• Personal letters, textbook excerpts, and op-eds

These aren’t just dumped in a folder, each one includes guiding questions, annotations, and a tie-in to the unit’s structure terms. Students learn how to:

• Spot bias
• Analyze conflicting viewpoints
• Ask why a narrative was framed a certain way

This part can be scaled. Use it lightly for a standard high school pace, or go deeper to prep for CLEP, APUSH, or even dual enrollment.

🔹 Scaffolded Writing That Encourages Argument, Not Regurgitation

Marc’s not writing essays every week—and thank goodness because he doesn’t like essay writing—but when writing comes up, it’s rich.

Instead of generic summaries, students are asked to:

• Respond to real historical questions
• Use primary sources as evidence
• Take a stand and defend it using structure terms and documents

This is the kind of writing that actually prepares kids for AP-style essays or college-level seminar discussions, and it feels meaningful because it comes from real questions, not a worksheet prompt.

🔹 Built-in Review and Cumulative Reflection

Rather than cramming reviews at the end of each unit, Nomadic Professor weaves in mini reflections and structural reviews throughout the course. These often ask students to:

• Connect new events to earlier themes
• Revisit the framing question and adjust their view
• Practice recall using structure terms and guided summaries

This keeps learning cumulative and active, not fragmented. And it makes it feel like the student’s own narrative of American history is taking shape, not just being handed to them.

For gifted, curious, or college-bound teens, this pace is a gift. It teaches them to think in layers, and that’s a skill even many adults haven’t mastered.

What About AP U.S. History?

If you’re wondering whether Nomadic Professor can prepare your teen for the AP U.S. History exam, here’s what you need to know.

Skill-wise? Absolutely.
The APUSH exam is designed to test students on skills like:

• Evaluating primary and secondary sources
• Analyzing historical claims and reasoning
• Contextualizing events and making connections
• Writing strong thesis-driven essays

Nomadic Professor teaches all of these directly and in many ways, better than traditional textbooks. Your teen won’t just memorize facts; they’ll learn how to think historically.

Content-wise? Nearly everything’s covered.
The course spans all required AP periods—from pre-Columbian America to modern times. Part 3 and Part 4 dive deeply into modern history, including Cold War, imperialism, censorship, and more.

But iIt’s not designed for the AP test. So while the content aligns well, there’s no test-specific coaching or essay practice tailored to AP expectations.

What to do if you want to take the AP test:
Pair Nomadic Professor with a dedicated APUSH test prep book (like Barron’s or Princeton Review) to cover any possible gaps and get familiar with test-specific formats. Or take the Nomadic Professor history courses as Honors or pre-AP before you dive into an exam-specific prep course.

Bonus: The creator has taught IB and A-levels too—so this course is honors-level in terms of depth and academic challenge. But again, it’s not a “transactional” prep course.

To test out the quality of the courses, you can try out another amazing one for FREE, The History of Free Speech.

Common Concerns About Nomadic Professor—Answered

I’ve seen a lot of homeschoolers ask questions about this program, especially in Facebook groups and forums. So let’s talk about the most common concerns—and what I’ve found after actually using it.

Find lesson plans available for this product at Homeschool Planet. Sign up for a 30-day FREE trial

Who Nomadic Professor’s American History Curriculum Is Best For (And Who It’s Not)

No curriculum is perfect for everyone and that’s a good thing. So here’s my take after using it up close:

Comparing Nomadic Professor to Other Secular American History Homeschool Curricula

Here’s how Nomadic Professor stacks up against other strong secular U.S. history programs for high school:

U.S. History Secular Curriculum Comparison

Curriculum	Secular	Rigor Level	Format	Strengths	Credit + Completion Format	Weaknesses
Nomadic Professor	✅ Yes	High (college prep)	Video, written text, DBQs, writing	Primary/secondary source analysis, structure terms, academic writing, AP/CLEP-ready	✅ Full credit course; designed for transcript use; includes writing and accountability components	May be too deep for checklist-style learners or if you want something to check off a history check box.
BookShark US History – Level I	✅ Yes	Medium-High	Literature-based, instructor guide, hands-on notebooking + Online Seat available	Rich, story-driven spine with timeline & mapping, excellent for reading together, strong retention	✅ Credit-ready course; requires parent grading or an online seat for grading	Requires daily teaching time, heavy reading load, minimal direct instruction for older kids
Big History Project	✅ Yes	Medium–High	Online course with activities	Interdisciplinary, global themes, free to use	❌ Flexible use; not transcript-ready without added writing and grading from parent	Not focused on American history; more about patterns across time and science
A History of Us by Joy Hakim (Oxford)	✅ Yes	Medium	Narrative books	Accessible, friendly tone, engaging for younger teens	❌ Not designed for credit; needs parent-created assessments and grading	Not designed for high school credit unless heavily supplemented
Crash Course U.S. History	✅ Yes	Medium–High	Video + DIY notebooking	Fast-paced, engaging for visual learners	❌ Supplement only; needs notebooking, assignments, and parent grading for credit	No built-in accountability or written work unless added manually.
Pandia Press – History Odyssey (Level 3)	✅ Yes	Medium	Reading + writing guide-based	Literature-rich, project-friendly	🟡 Partial credit; needs additional evaluation or outside grading to use on transcript	Prep-heavy for parents; lacks a high school credit scaffolding
Zinn Education Project	✅ Yes	High (social justice lens)	Source-based lesson packs	Critical thinking, activist history	❌ Not transcript-ready; best for enrichment or supplemental civics content	Strong ideological perspective may not suit all families
Oak Meadow U.S. History	✅ Yes	Medium	Book + creative projects	Gentle approach, lots of reflection and writing	✅ Can be used for credit; gentle but credit-worthy with written work and projects	Not tightly structured; not ideal for exam-bound teens
Allsides American History	✅ Yes	Medium–High	Online with cross-perspective news	Encourages viewpoint comparison, media literacy	❌ Not transcript-ready; great as a critical thinking supplement	Still new; not fully fleshed out for full transcript credit

What sets Nomadic Professor apart?
The Nomadic Professor the only secular high school history curriculum I’ve seen that:

• Is truly academic, not just content-rich
• Trains your teen to think like a historian
• Includes structured writing and analysis prep
• Offers framing questions and tools like structure terms to deepen reasoning

Prefer watching a video instead of reading? I made a full YouTube video walking you through Nomadic Professor Parts 3 & 4 — including a peek inside the curriculum, how it’s structured, and who it’s best for.

https://youtu.be/1SGVaXUTtIA

Final Thoughts + Try It Yourself

If you’ve been searching for a U.S. history program that’s actually worthy of your teen’s time — one that builds real academic thinking, not just recall — I can’t recommend Nomadic Professor’s American History homeschool curriculum enough.

It’s deep, layered, flexible, and built with intention. And honestly? It’s the kind of resource that makes me feel excited to homeschool through high school.

I know some parents hesitate because Nomadic Professor sounds intense — and yes, it is. But it’s doable. And more than that, it’s worth it. The structure is there, the support is built-in, and the results? Real academic growth, not just a box checked.

If you want to learn more or try it out:

👉 Read my full review of Parts 1 & 2 here
👉 Explore Nomadic Professor’s courses and free previews here
👉 Or just bookmark this post and come back when your teen is ready for the next step.

And if you have questions about how we use it, feel free to comment or message me. I’m always happy to chat curriculum with fellow homeschoolers who want something more than just boxes checked.

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