Declaration of independence
Each student will compose, write, and submit a unique essay of a minimum of 1200 – 1750 words, properly documented and formatted per MLA guidelines (with absolutely no exceptions allowed, even in the draft phase) an essay responding effectively to the following prompt for analysis:
Analyze the use of appeals in Jefferson’s draft and the published version of the Declaration of Independence. Your job is to analyze both how Jefferson envisions an audience – what does he do to engage that original audience and how the revision by the Committee of Five (the version published) shifts the focus of the Declaration by re-envisioning how to engage its audience. This is NOT a compare/contrast essay. This is an analysis of how appeals work and how, by shifting the focus, one shifts one’s appeals to achieve particular effects on an audience.
No sources aside from Aristotle’s On Rhetoric and the texts of the draft and revision are allowed for this assignment. All materials must be cited parenthetically and with correct and complete works cited entries.
You should use the formula given in class as a basis for your structure, but this is a more complicated essay, so you may find it strategically useful to shift it around. Remember that analysis is about hows and whys. Whats are necessary as evidence, but your job is to make me understand your provable thesis through your analytical claims and their explication.
