Rhetorical précis

The rhetorical précis is a great assignment for both content-area teachers and English-Language Arts teachers and can be used with any informational text. The template is explained in Reading Rhetorically, by John Bean, Virginia Chappell, and Alice Gillam, and is credited to Margaret K.Woodworth.

The rhetorical précis is a succinct way to summarize and analyze any informational text. Students can use it as a way to sum up their reading, and as preparation for the next step using the reading (preparations for an essay or a study guide for a test, for example). If students create a rhetorical précis after reading a text, not only will they have a summary of the text, but also a reminder of the author’s purpose, method, and intended audience. Also, each sentence from the template could be developed into an essay, making this a good outlining tool.

Here are the basics (from page 63 of Reading Rhetorically, Brief Edition by Bean, Chappell, Gillam):

Sentence One: Name of the author, genre, and title of work, date in parentheses; a rhetorically active verb (such as claims, argues, asserts, suggests); and a THAT clause containing the major assertion or thesis in the text.
Sentence Two: An explanation of how the author develops and supports the thesis.
Sentence Three: A statement of the author’s apparent purpose, followed by an “in order to” phrase.
Sentence Four: A description of the intended audience and/or the relationship the author establishes with the audience.

Preparing students to write the rhetorical précis first requires the students to read actively -- intellectually engaging with the text and reading with a pen or pencil in hand in order to annotate the text.  Students should underline/circle important passages, mark words to look up, ask questions in the margins, note the structure of the text, the writer’s use of certain conventions, etc. Students should pay attention to the title (and the subtitle) – it can tell the readerwhat the text is about, or even state the central claim explicitly; it can make reference to other writings, subjects, or events; and, it can express the writer’s attitude about the subject. Topic sentences are a helpful marker of structure and development throughout a text. They should look for major textual or visual structures (headings, whitespace, etc.), and look for signal words, especially transitional words (“next,” “finally,” “however,” “at first glance,” “for example,” etc.) that signal structure within the text.

Resources

Instructor’s Guide to Reading Rhetorically

Online guide to the Reading Rhetorically

Worksheet/template for studentswith examples from another teacher

Another handout for students by a different teacher

How to do a close reading

Close Reading (Note and Notice by Kyleen Beers andRobert Probst

Rhetorical précis

 

An experiment

Over the winter break I read “Snow Fall: Avalanche at Tunnel Creek.” At first, I didn’t pay attention to how long the article was, nor did I check out all of the interactive features – I just read the story, focusing on the parts that interested me and skimming the parts I found less interesting. Later, as I was thinking about how I wanted to start the semester, I came back to the article and re-read it, this time thinking about how students might react to it and how I could use it as a mentor text in class. On the second read, I clicked on every link, watched every video. Personally, I found many of the enhancements distracting – there were only a few that helped my understanding of the story and several that added interest, but some just seemed extraneous to me. I also found two additional articles describing the creation of the piece and read both of those ("How We Made Snow Fall" and "Q & A: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek".

I assigned the reading over three nights, two sections per night. As I assigned the reading, I explained that many were calling this the "future of web storytelling" and a new kind of digital journalism, and asked them to read with this in mind. On the second day we spent a significant amount of the period discussing the two sections they read. We talked about the multimedia features and how those affected our reading, and we talked about how narrative and informative text were woven together to tell a complete story. I also asked them to talk about their background knowledge – how many skied or snowboarded, how many had been “out-of-boundaries” when doing so, if they had even been caught in a wave (an analogy used in the first section to describe the feeling of being swept up in the avalanche). A handful of students had never seen snow; about a third of the class skis/snowboards regularly. The response to the first two parts was fairly positive.

We didn’t discuss the second two sections in class; instead, I had them write about what they had read. Again, feedback on the reading was mostly positive. Then, after completing the final two sections, we had another discussion, evaluating the helpfulness of each non-textual element. The students also worked in small groups to descriptively outline a section of the story, chunking the writing and indicating its purpose in the larger section (narrative vs. informative, for example). We spent time talking about how the text is structured – how narrative is interwoven with explanatory writing and graphics, and how that affected our reading.

I explained that the goal ultimately is for them to produce their own multimedia piece that combines narrative, informative, and non-text elements. I left the project pretty wide open – they can choose topic and final format, but all elements must work together to tell story and convey information.

I wanted them to have some practice before turning them loose, so we spent three periods trying to turn Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour” into something more than a story on a page. One period was devoted to reading the story and brainstorming possible enhancements. The second period was spent in the lab, hyperlinking photos, videos, and audio clips (surprising how many kids did not know how to embed links in a Word or Google doc), and inserting comments to explain what they would like to do, but didn’t have skills to do. Some of their multimedia enhancement ideas were quite interesting! The last day we were back in the lab, evaluating each other’s versions of the same story – which additions helped their understanding of the story, which were unnecessary or distracting, which were really creative ideas of how to enhance the story.

As they started planning their stories, I shared other examples I found by searching for interactive storytelling and multimedia fiction. Here are some of those stories:

Nightingale's Playground
Inanimate Alice
Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro
BlackHawk Down
For Amusement Only: The Life and Death of the American Arcade
The Long, Strange Trip of Dock Ellis
Cyborg America: Inside the strange new world of basement body hackers

We also looked at children's books to get a better idea of how pictures can be used to tell a story, as well as this photo essay which prompted a great discussion.

We will revisit "Snow Fall" this week, looking closely at how the author introduces new topics and characters, how he includes dialog, how he builds tension – getting into the nitty gritty of the writing with the hopes that they will be able to emulate that in their own stories.

I have no idea what kind of final product many will share with me, but the buzz in the lab on Friday was good. I can't wait to be amazed by their creativity!

Brave New World in a Brave New Way

I’m in the midst of a dystopian unit I’ve taught before and I’m realizing how much my lessons are changing in order to meet the CCSS. I’ve taught Brave New World a handful of times now, and in the past I’ve focused more on the ideas in the book and connections we can make to present-day life. I haven’t focused as much on the text itself, especially the writing, because honestly, I don’t care for the writing – it’s the ideas that draw me in. I don’t think this novel is particularly well-written and I don’t find the style to be what drives my interest in the book; there are parts of the book I wish Huxley had written differently and there are plenty of places in the story where I think Huxley is focusing more on getting his ideas out than telling a good story. But as I prepared to introduce my students to this classic, I realized that if I am to address the Common Core reading standards for literature, I need to change what I do with this text.

I think I do a pretty good job of having students find evidence in the text (standard 1). That they don’t always integrate this evidence into their essays is another issue, but when I ask them to find, for example, a quote that highlights something the society in BNW values, they can provide a quote about community or stability. We’re about halfway through the book at this point, and I’ve asked them to find quotes that support assertions or reveal something about the themes that I’ve provided them. As we get closer to finishing the text, they’ll have to make the assertions and find the quotes, but initially, I did to make sure they were on the right track.

As we finish and review the text this week, we’ll spend time looking at how themes are developed (standard 2), and new for me this time around, the author’s choices in how to develop and relate elements of a story (standard 3). I usually gloss over how BNW is written, but now I’ll slow down the conversation and let the students focus on the strengths and weaknesses of the writing. We’ll have to spend time looking at how the text is structured and how that contributes to its overall meaning (standard 5). And we’ll look at why Huxley wrote the novel, which I think gets at standard 6 (point of view).

One aspect of teaching this unit that I am not changing is all the additional reading I bring in to support our study of the ideas presented in BNW. Some of these readings include Huxley’s own essays in Brave New World Revisited, but I have some additional current events-type articles to also spark discussion and deeper thought. These address the CCSS standards for reading informational texts. As with the novel itself, I’ve used some of these readings in the past to generate in-class discussions, but now, with the standards for informational reading in hand, we’ll spend more time analyzing the text and not just the ideas.

I know it isn’t necessary to hit every standard in every unit, that the standards are end-of-year grade-level expectations, but I do need to make sure that I am addressing these throughout the year and not just focusing on the easy-for-me or preferably-to-me standards. And looking at how this novel is written is just as important as what was written, so that’s the task this week.

 

How are you adapting your lessons to meet the new standards, Jen B?