Hmmm-- well, I feel your pain here. My DD14, now a HS senior, has really struggled some with the "liteness" of such coursework during middle and high school. She's a virtual school student, so I "see" the classes more than most parents do... though they aren't technically homeschooling in that I have no choice/control over curriculum decisions or assessments or anything like that.
Here's what she DID do, and then I'll explain what I think she should have done differently instead:
Year 1:
geography course
economics (combo)
Honors English 9
Year 2:
Honors World History
Honors English 10
Honors English 11
Year 3:
Honors US History (reconstruction-through-modern era)
Honors American Govt
AP English Literature
Year 4:
AP US history
AP English Composition
Also know that we regularly 'vacation' at one of the best repertory theater festivals on the planet, and DD has seen ~80% of Shakespeare's complete canon. She also spent 3 weeks in Europe during Year 3-- with me, as well as on a school tour group (with the AP Lit teacher).
Okay-- my commentary is that this was more or less not a bad plan-- except for two things:
A) My daughter LOATHES economics. With a PASSION. OMG. I so wish that I'd signed her up for AP Art History that year instead of that combo in year 1. In addition to the otherwise good Econ class, that geography class was a total mess, and we ALL hated it (the teacher included).
B) Forget "honors" on the social studies side-- we'd have been SO much happier if she'd done AP World History and AP US History and AP Am. Govt. It's not that the classes were bad as honors offerings... just.... shallow. English, we really saw a huge difference between honors and AP, and I'm seeing the same thing now with US History-- the AP course offers a lot more wiggle room for deeper understanding and thinking and writing about topical ideas.
I also wish that she'd doubled up English right from the get-go, and done Honors 9&10, then 11&12, then the AP classes as singles. She is sad that she didn't get to take "Brit Lit" which is the traditional Honors 12 curriculum.
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That said, I feel that the original idea of progressing from WORLD history-- that is, from prehistory through the post-Colonial era-- is a great set-up to understand US History and American Government particularly well.
I also found that the pair of AP English courses are pretty well constructed, and while some assignments are more like busy work than anything else, there IS good content there, and sufficient reading to really sink teeth into, as well as student CHOICE of reading materials which can be used to add still more to the depth of things. For example, my DD chose things like Toni Morrison, Upton Sinclair and Anton Chekhov for "independent" assignments and analysis. The difficulty was definitely beyond what was required by the course, but it was not a problem to go a little further like that. This can't really be said for a lot of "honors/college prep" coursework, IMO.
