Sorting a Revolutionary-Era Text by Its Errand

The idea

This period's writing divides by what it is trying to do, and five errands cover the exam's field. A text that instructs offers a method for living and is addressed to a reader who might adopt it, as Franklin's autobiography and almanac do. A text that persuades to action argues a public question in plain language for the widest audience, as Paine's pamphlets do. A text that founds states a premise and derives authority from it, which is the Declaration's form and the Federalist's. A text that testifies narrates the writer's own experience as evidence in an argument, which is what Equiano's narrative and Wheatley's Dartmouth poem do. A text that petitions addresses power directly and asks it to act, as Banneker's letter and Absalom Jones's petitions do. Ask who is addressed and what the reader is expected to do next.