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Brian Lucy

Ms. Michko

E Block

4, June, 2024

Rhetorically Analyzing Player Analysis with Precis

Lesson: How to write a rhetorical précis using SPACECAT.

Objective: To appropriately analyze nonfiction and communicate its purpose.

Vocabulary terms: SPACECAT, rhetorically accurate verb.

Bell-ringer (on the board): Read and pass along a variety of nonfiction and other works around

the classroom. Have students mark up the text indicating wherever

there is evidence of tone or purpose. To prepare for the remainder of

class, have students be prepared to share what they find to circle

back to how that can be said with rhetorical language.

Lesson Procedure/Activity 1 Students will be given recent pro sports players analysis, a genre of

sports writing that usually contains a lot of bias and is rarely

straightforward to summarizing player performance, leaving the

author’s opinionated purpose easier to identify than others. To

begin, gather in small groups, and practice choosing three

rhetorically accurate verbs that apply to the rhetorical situation.

Emphasize that these verbs have a purpose and it is important to

pick the ones that are most significant to the text. Additionally

encourage students to be ready to justify the three verbs with textual

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evidence from multiple parts of the text. Then, discuss how these

choices support the author’s position on their piece of writing and

why or why not the author include or left out certain details.

Lesson Procedure/Activity 2 Go over the elements of SPACECAT, and have groups practice

identifying each element in their same piece of text. Many of these

will be obviously revealed, as many sports author’s are fans of

certain teams over others, and usually write following certain

success or failures of the highly skilled players they write about.

Break down each element by asking for textual evidence for each.

Each group, (divided by their player analysis) will then share out

and present their spacecat chart to the class. In the end students will

realize their texts are from the same game revealing more purpose

for each text, as students can find that some details may be more left

out than others. After comparing all of them as a class, students will

refine their charts before concluding.

Additional activities Introduce a model and then separately a reference of structure for a

rhetorical precis. Present the sample to the class and discuss how

their unpacking of the texts they just read and analyzed with

SPACECAT is transformed and summarized in the precis format.

Assessment/Lesson Closing With the SPACECAT students created in class, write a rhetorical

precis on the player analysis that each student reads. Students

should work individually on this until next class and should have a
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rough draft ready to begin the upcoming lesson. This is because in

the same groups before made by those who picked the same player

analysis, students will swap with someone outside of their group

and edit each other's work through peer feedback. After the

feedback and edit process, to conclude the lesson students will

submit their first precis they have made.