I was reading through the reviews and decided to add mine, hoping it might add some clarification to some of the points in the other reviews.

* This is not a 'traditional' curriculum/textbook. This book is not an 'all in one' textbook. It is also not a new or old testament survey etc. (This is precisely why we liked this course.) Along with this workbook you will need about 10-12 other assorted books throughout the year. (The books are not expensive, most can be purchased for 6-8$, and a couple can be found online for free as a PDF.)

* My son (who is a junior this year) was NOT able to complete this workbook in one year. It is turning into a 3 semester course for him. I think this course is probably suitable for teens in there sophomore year or beyond. The concepts are not difficult (my junior higher can understand much of it) but the books range from lower grade level reading (Chronicles of Narnia) to higher grade level (CS Lewis' Mere Christianity).

* The book divides the assignments up into daily/weekly assignments. My recommendation is to NOT go strictly by the book's suggestions for how much your child can do in one week. Sometimes a LARGE amount of reading and note taking is required in one week according to this book's breakdown of assignments. After realizing this, (and seeing how stressed out my son was) we re-adjusted the schedule to suit our needs. It went MUCH better after that. (For example, the book allows 3 days to read "Jekyl & Hyde" and write a worldview analysis paper on it. I extended this assignment by more than a week.)

* This book begins with teaching students exactly what the Biblical worldview is, and goes through a substantial amount of basic doctrine. After that instruction is done, it moves on to teaching the student to analyze movies and literature to determine if the writings reflect the Biblical Worldview or not. This is important as it helps the student to apply what they have learned to the world and culture around them. This has actually increased my son's (and my) appreciation and understand of literature and movies. Because of this, however, you may be surprised to find that this curriculum contains a literature and writing element to it. You could consider this partial credit in lit/writing if you chose. **** I found Starting Points to go really well with IEW's "Window's to the World" literary analysis curriculum. If you choose to do these programs together, your student will have a strong foundation in literature.

* This curriculum is a good worldview primer, as well as a good introduction to apologetics.

* This curriculum is great if you aren't a fan of 'textbooks'.

* It will help your child to analyze and think about what they are reading, watching, and how they engage in the culture and world around them.

* Your student might be able to navigate through this curriculum on their own, however I think it works best if, as a parent, you can be engaged in the material alongside with them. I read some of the books alongside my son, and other books I just skimmed to get an idea of what he was learning. (hint - try audio books - and a quick google search will pull up great book summaries!) This dialogue was an important part of this course for my son. Also, while we found the Bible doctrine in this book to be very sound, there were one or two points that we didn't quite agree with. This was easily navigated around as we discussed Bible scripture that the books pointed to.

I found this course to be exactly what we needed! I wanted to extra element of teaching my son to think about what he was reading. Rather than expecting students to disengage their brain/thinking skills, it works to enhance them. I highly recommend.

This is a high school curriculum. Both of my older children have gone through it and they both recommend it and say it helped them and tell me I have to have my younger three go through it as well. They value it themselves, that much.

I have to share that this is a "God-send" course for us. We had a 9th and 10th grader go through it this year. I was looking for something that would cover Bible, World View, etc. and this not only covers that but some essay writing as well. It covers what is in our hearts as parents: To prepare our children to discern everything we encourter or read with sound Biblical Christian discernment. Hats off to David Quine for this Starting Points syllabus. We are definatley going to continue with his next courses, World Veiws of the Western World Vol. 1-3, to cover theology, literature, economics, history, etc. in high school. I am equally impressed with the book selections for the WVWW courses.- Only 4.5 stars because my children prefered to write essays in another style than dictated in the syllabus. No big deal. - I think this course is better suited as a Freshman year course. It is not "hard", but challenging- really worth it. - Takes about 4-5 hours/week to complete the readings (several good books- see Cornerstone website).- High school transcript credits: Theology/Bible- 1, Literature- 1, American History- 1

I first considered purchasing this book during the summer, but decided to just use what I already had at home. My children became very frustrated. I decided to go ahead and purchase this book and I am very glad I did. Both of my children are loving it and say they find it much more interesting. We have all been very pleased.

Wanting to help my daughter with SP, I started it before she did and a good thing I did. After being converted 22 yrs ago, SP showed me why I believe what I believe. Im convinced that this should be a required course for every Christian. We all have questionsSP guides you to the answers. I just cant say enough good things about it. Worth every penny