By now, you should have written a letter arguing for or against the colonies’ in

By now, you should have written a letter arguing for or against the colonies’ independence from Britain. Your essay should include the following elements:
A strong introduction
A clear claim
Relevant evidence
An acknowledgement of the counterclaim(s)
Now that you’ve finished your letter, you’ll be presenting it to the class to explain which rhetorical techniques you used, giving examples as needed. Your instructor might have you read your letter out loud to the class and answer questions in person, or you might upload your letter to a message board or website in order to get comments and questions online.
Option: If you don’t have classmates or easy access to an online forum, you can explain your rhetorical techniques by writing a two- to three-sentence annotation. Your explanation can appear in a comment box, at the end of the document, or somewhere else as long as you clearly distinguished your annotation from the text of your letter. In your annotation, you should clearly point out a specific example of each rhetorical technique you used. Ask yourself these questions as you revise:
Have I included all the necessary parts of the letter?
Did I clearly address at least one counterclaim?
Did I use words with appropriate connotations in order to engage the emotions of my audience?
Have I checked for grammar, usage, and punctuation errors? Read each question and evaluate your work. If the answer to the question is yes, check the box to the left. If the answer is no, go back and revise your work. Your teacher will use the same guiding questions to score your essay.