The World for Freedom

'''NYS Common Core Essay Structures'''

NYS tests students' reading and writing ability by having them write paragraphs and essays otherwise known as "short answer response" and "extended response."

Both use a simple acronym for the students to remember how to write each type in a way that will allow the students to receive full score on the Statewide exams.

This acronym is '''R-A-C-E-''' which breaks down to the following:

'''R- Restate the question =''' This means that the student must restate the questions so that in a short answer response question, the restating of the question becomes a topic sentence. 

An example would be, if the question is asking, " Based on the story and your knowledge of American traditions, how is our Thanksgiving different from the thanksgiving in the story?"
The topic sentence or restatement would be:
Without the answer- "Our Thanksgiving is different from the thanksgiving in the story for many reasons."
With the answer - "Our Thanksgiving is different from the thanksgiving in the story because the thanksgiving in the story does not have a Europeans, any reference to God, and it is not a group of people, but just a family."

'''A- Answer the Question''' - As in the above example, you can either add the answer to the topic sentence or write it separately after the topic sentence as such,
" The focus of the thanksgiving in the story is about a Native American family having a thanksgiving meal after a long growing season."

'''C - Cite the text evidence''' - For this sentence the students must copy the exact phrase, word for word from the passage they read to show the test checkers that they know exactly where the "Prove-it-Phrase" to the answer comes from. This falls under a relatively new type of question called "Command of Evidence" question.  In most writing, this might fall under the category of copying, plagiarism, or not being creative, but that's what the tests require now: finding and writing the exact phrase from the passage.

The student should start with one of the transitional phrases below for the first piece of evidence:

According to the story, " ~"
The text states, " ~"
In the story, the author writes, " ~"

For the second evidence, the students should use a slight variation of the above phrases:
Also, the text states, " ~"
The text also states,, " ~"



'''E- Explain the cited text'''- In this sentence students are able to now show if they really understand what the writer of the passage meant.

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For the different type of writings, one evidence paragraph, multi evidence paragraph, and essays, students use different variations of the R-A-C-E- method.

'''one evidence paragraph''' uses - R-A-C-E

'''two evidence paragraph''' uses - R-A-C-E-A-C-E

'''1 body paragraph essay:'''  (intro) R-A-A      (Body paragraph) R-A-C-E- (conclusion)  R-A-A 

'''2 body paragraph essay:''' (intro) R-A-A      (Body paragraph1 ) R-A-C-E-     (Body paragraph 2) R-A-C-E- (conclusion)  R-A-A 

'''3 body paragraph essay:''' (intro) R-A-A      (Body paragraph1 ) R-A-C-E-     (Body paragraph 2)     R-A-C-E- (Body paragraph 3) R-A-C-E-    (conclusion)  R-A-A
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−	'''NYS Common Core ~~Writing~~ Structures'''	+	'''NYS Common Core Essay Structures'''

	NYS tests students' reading and writing ability by having them write paragraphs and essays otherwise known as "short answer response" and "extended response."		NYS tests students' reading and writing ability by having them write paragraphs and essays otherwise known as "short answer response" and "extended response."