declaration

The Declaration of Independence has four main parts:
* a preamble, or foreword, that announces the reason for the document
* a declaration of people's natural rights and relationship to government
* a long list of complaints against George III, the British king
* a conclusion that formally states America's independence


Helpful definitions:
unalienable: that may not be taken away
despotism: absolute power or control; tyranny
transient: passing away with time
usurpations: acts of wrongfully taking over a right or power that belongs to someone else
conjured: appealed to
consanguinity: blood relationship
acquiesce in the necessity which denounces: recognize that we must demand
parallelism: the use of similar grammatical forms to express ideas of equal importance
insurrections: an act or instance of rising in revolt, rebellion, or resistance against civil authority or an established government

List of complaints begins with "He..."
Why do they repeat it? to emphasize that it is the king who is doing it
Why do they make it personal? to put blame on the king


How does the D.I. anticipate its audiences resistance to change?
they show people what they are doing wrong and hope that this will help them change

How does the D.I. use parallelism? How does it impact the effectiveness of the piece?
by using he. It helps show all that is going wrong

parallelism: when a writer uses similar grammatical forms or sentence patterns to express ideas of equal importance.

What to you is the most convincing example stated in the D.I.? Why?
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.