Humanities B is a course designed to improve students' composition skills through the integration of grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and writing lessons. While students do compose at least four summaries of literary texts, the vast majority of writing assignments in this unit are argumentative in nature. In the first unit, students learn the core components of the Toulmin Model for Argumentation as well as how they will be expected to use this model in their writing. Students begin by learning to master individual elements of the Toulmin model (i.e., claim, clarification, evidence, warrant), but by the end of the first semester are expected to build essays using all four central components. In addition, students are taught to use different forms of evidence in their essays (e.g., facts, quotes, paraphrases, statistics, expert opinions). In the second semester, students participate in an essay contest that corresponds with Dr. King's birthday, learn new elements of the Toulmin model to write a persuasive essay, and continue to refine their argumentative writing style. Throughout the year, specific grammatical topics are assigned to these writing projects. Specific grammar skills are integrated within these writing units to ensure that students learn to incorporate these grammatical elements into their writing. Likewise, vocabulary and spelling lessons and quizzes occur weekly across the year. These lessons and quizzes also incorporate prefixes, suffixes, synonyms, antonyms, analogies, and idioms. Each unit is roughly six weeks long and generally consists of weekly vocabulary and spelling quizzes, at least one major writing product, and the introduction of at least three new grammatical topics.
