Declaration of independence
The Declaration of independence is a famous text that was written to form our country. The tone was strict and firm, to enforce the way of life that our finders wanted. A big, “we the people theme”, can be that the men who wrote the papers were very hypocritical. As well, a good theme would be that the language used can be interpreted in many ways, so it can change with the time and culture, which it was many times. A great example would be slavery and discrimination. The first statement “all men are created equal” has created much controversy when African-american citizens were not being treated equally. Leaders such as Martin Luther King, used the Declaration of Independence to support his case.
The Constitution
The Constitution is another famous text that was written with the standard Bill of Rights and 17 that have been added. The Bill of Rights are straight forward and protect our freedom as American citizens. The tone used is very welcoming and encourages people to want to be in the United States. We were built on rebels, who wanted to have the freedom to believe and do what they mostly wanted, you can see that in the Bill of Rights. A theme for “we the people”, can be about how the amendments have helped people all around the world in the country. Another theme could be about the 17 added amendments that were formed to assimilate with time, such as the 19th which gave woman the right to vote. Today, the Constitution is used for things such as legalizing gay marriage, abortion, and gun laws. Many people believe that making abortion legal, will vandalize their first amendment. More importantly, people have been trying to get the second amendment changed, because of the amount of shootings in the past few years. However, it won’t be easy, since many people believe that their rights cannot be changed or taken away, for any reason.
Thanks for your post. I see you trying to gesture to the things I ask you to do in the post. I see you point out the tone of the Declaration of Independence and of the Bill of Rights. I see you wanting to think about possible themes your group might focus on, and I see how you brought in the contemporary debates about gun control in the end, which I think is good. My concern here is that you need to go much deeper on all three accounts. The theme for your group is understandably a little harder to address in this first week since your group has not decided on the theme (though I did ask for group A to just pick a temporary theme and run with it). In regards to addressing formal and rhetorical choices, you need to go deeper. The first and foremost way to go deeper is for you to include quoted text which you discuss. It would have helped your claims if you had given us a quote from the Declaration and from the Bill of Rights and compared and contrast what in their language generates different tones (i.e. formal vs welcoming). It’s not hard to imagine that the Declaration of Independence uses a formal tone, but I shouldn’t be imagining, and moreover you should tell me how and why. It is hard for me to imagine the Bill of Rights (technically part of the Constitution) as using a welcoming tone. That’s a claim you most certainly have to prove. I’m not saying you can’t make an argument for it; I’m saying you have to make a case for it. You have to in both cases show me what you’re thinking.
Similarly you allude to the contemporary controversy around gun control, but you don’t go far enough. You need to use an actual text (i.e. a news clip, a speech, a New York Times article about some part of gun control) and then you would have discussed the language, images, genre, or argument strategy etc. of the contemporary text in relation to some part of the assigned text.