Homeschool History Curriculum, 12-Week AI Tutor Guide for Ages 11-17, Primary Sources, Critical Thinking, Inquiry Lessons, PDF

History taught as dates to memorize produces boredom. History taught as inquiry (claims, sources, and arguments about why things happened) produces thinkers. This 12-week plan turns an AI tutor into a debate partner and source-finder (never an encyclopedia to copy from), and builds one core habit: every claim gets the question "how do we know that?"

WHAT YOU GET
This is a deep, ready-to-run digital guide: 12 weekly ~60-minute sessions, fully scripted so you lead with confidence. No history degree, no AI experience, no prep required.
• "Never used an AI chat assistant? Start here": a five-minute onboarding in the front matter that gets a complete beginner from zero to ready, using any free AI assistant. No paid plan needed.
• Four rescue prompts in the front matter for when a session goes sideways: off-topic answers, a stuck learner, an AI that won't stop lecturing, or a debate that fizzles.
• 12 weekly sessions, each with a plain-language concept, a concrete worked example, a minute-by-minute session plan for the full ~60 minutes, copy/paste AI-tutor prompts at every step (including the "debate partner, not encyclopedia" starter prompt), a "show me" checkpoint, common mistakes to avoid, and independent practice.
• An AI-tutor prompt playbook: a Socratic tutor that pushes for evidence, plus a guardrail against copy-paste answers.

THE 12 WEEKS
1. How Do We Know Anything?
2. Your Family Is History
3. Maps Lie (a Little)
4. The Question of Why
5. Ordinary People
6. Propaganda and Spin
7. Turning Points
8. Whose Story Gets Told?
9. Objects Talk
10. Project Week I: Choose Your Case
11. Project Week II: Investigate
12. Present the Case

WHO IT'S FOR
Parents and teachers guiding a learner aged roughly 11-17 who thinks history is memorizing dates. No history degree required: you pick the topics that matter to your family; the tutor supplies the sparring and the sources.

WHY THIS INSTEAD OF A FREE CHATBOT
Ask a chatbot a history question and you get a paragraph to copy. This pack refuses that: the tutor is set up as a debate partner that demands evidence, the weekly arc builds real source-reading and argument skills, and the guardrail blocks the copy-paste shortcut. Critical thinking by design, not by accident.

FAQ
• Do I need to know the history myself? No. You choose topics you care about; the tutor finds sources and argues both sides while the learner does the thinking.
• Which AI does it use? What if I've never used one? Works with any modern AI assistant: ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, or Gemini. Free versions are enough; no paid plan needed. The guide's first section walks complete beginners through setup in about five minutes, so never having used an AI chat assistant before is not a barrier.
• How much time does this take? You lead one ~60-minute session each week. Every step is timed and every AI prompt is written for you. No expertise or extra prep needed.
• Is my child's data collected? No. It's a digital guide sold to you, the adult. No login, no child account. You start and supervise sessions under your own account.
• What ages? Roughly 11-17.
• Refunds? Standard marketplace refund policy applies.

WHAT'S IN THE DOWNLOAD
• history-guide.pdf: the full 12-week guide, easy to read on any phone, tablet, or computer
• history-ai-copy.md: the same guide as plain text, to hand straight to your AI chat assistant
• Placement check (Does Your Kid Think Like a Historian - Or Just Memorize the Dates?): a 15-minute AI chat that scores where your learner stands and names the week to start at, as a prompt to paste and a printable card
• READ-ME-FIRST.txt: which file is which

Instant digital download. Nothing is shipped.