RACES Response Writing

RACE is an acronym for a writing strategy

when responding to written work, usually non-fiction.

This means, you'll read something,

then write a short piece addressing a question, or a prompt,

associated with the written work (the text).

Often, a fifth part--the S in RACES--is added,

to remind you to "sum it up."

Let's look at each of these steps, or elements, of a good response

(whether a paragraph or a whole essay):

R & A work together, and C & E work together.

R: RESTATE. When you get a prompt, turn it into an answer, or statements, and that will guide what you're writing about. This ensures that you stay on topic!

Example:

Prompt: How does the author express their main idea?'

Answer/Statement (what YOU will use in YOUR writing as your THESIS):

The author uses vivid imagery and lots of figurative language to express their main idea of "freedom."

A: ANSWER. Make sure you're answering ALL the parts of the prompt/question!

Example:

Prompt: How does the author express their main idea?'

Parts to include in your writing: author, author's main idea, and the methods the author uses to express that main idea. THEN MAKE SURE YOU WRITE LATER IN THE PARAGRAPH/ESSAY ABOUT ALL OF THESE.

Answer/Statement (what YOU will use in YOUR writing as your THESIS):

The author uses vivid imagery and lots of figurative language to express their main idea of "freedom."

C: CITE. Quote, paraphrase, or refer to the text that you read. You must do this.

Sometimes this requires using an official citing method to attribute (like parenthetical citations and works cited pages), but even if your writing is casual and you don't have to cite, you still need to quote or paraphrase points from the reading!

If you quote, you use quotation marks and quote the author's words exactly. If you paraphrase, you still note that the IDEA is from the author, but you put it into your own words.

Example (quotation):

The author says, "Freedom is a butterfly, beautiful to see but hard to catch."

Example (paraphrase):

By using symbolism, such as the butterfly, the author gets their ideas across in an interesting way.

E: EXPLAIN. For every quotation, paraphrase, or reference to the author's work that you use as an example, you have to EXPLAIN how that reference helps support your thesis. Why did you choose that reference? How does it help you? If you can't answer that, you might want to choose a difference piece of the text to quote or paraphrase.

THIS SHOULD BE THE BIGGEST PART OF YOUR RESPONSE, WHETHER PARAGRAPH OR ESSAY!

Example:

By using this symbolism, the author is using creativity to address the reader, and forcing us to view freedom--his main idea--in new ways.

S: SUM IT UP. Every response in writing should have a clear finish, whether it's to signal the paragraph is over and you're going to another topic, or the essay is finished, or the chapter is over, etc. In non-fiction response writing, that's done by summing up, or reviewing, what you just said--BRIEFLY.

For a short response of a couple paragraphs, this can be one sentence. For an essay, this might be a whole paragraph or more, depending on the length of the assignment.

Example:

Both of these symbols are used to express freedom in this part of the author's [speech, book, essay, poem, story].

Example:

In summary, many types of figurative language and vivid imagery are used to express the author's concept of freedom in this [speech, book, essay, poem, story].

The RACES response form. Note that there's a place to check off each element --R, A, C, E, S--as you write, so you know you get them all!

All responses should be 2-4 paragraphs, but you can write as much as you'd like. You can open and type, or you can print and hand-write.

Note the editing requirements!