Presumably this will require some citation of textual evidence from other stakeholders and to that extent I think it could be valuable to root this advocacy in annotation of primary sources.

At the very least, my annotations from Units 1 and 2 would likely prove incredibly helpful at this point in the term, as they could be the groundwork for my more argumentative approach to my chosen controversy.

Imagine this paper first as a detailed close reading/rhetorical analysis of a primary source document, an op-ed article, for example, with all the rhetorical strategies and patterns highlighted and described/analyzed...

This "analysis and description" of primary source documents related to the topic could be done through direct annotation of the texts--and probably already is, though on paper and individually. Doing so on the texts themselves, at least in preparation for an essay--might help prevent any slippage toward "evaluation and argumentation." Annotations could be checked/assessed for their attention to the difference.