A.C.E.
How to properly answer a written response question
 A= answer the question.
 What this means is you’re going to take the question
A
and you’re going to turn it into a statement. For
instance What kind of mood, or main feeling, does this passage
help establish for the story?
 The mood this passages helps establish for the story is a
suspenseful mood.
 C= cite evidence
 This means you’re going to go back into the text and
find a place that supports your answer.
C
 The part of the passage that shows us that mood is one of
suspense is when in paragraph two when the narrator
states, “I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face,
and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the
thought of his immolation.”
 E= explain the evidence.
 Here you need to be able to explain how what you cited
E
ties back to the answer you gave with A.
 This part of the passage establish the suspenseful mood
because we, the reader, are aware of the fact that the
narrator is planning to do something horrible to Fortunato,
but we don’t know what.
 Using A.C.E. you can create a well written response that
fully answers a question with support to back up your
thinking. Typically, if you can find evidence to support
your answer, then you have found the correct answer.
 A well written response would look like all of our pieces
put together:
 The mood this passages helps establish for the story is a
Final result
suspenseful mood. The part of the passage that shows us
that mood is one of suspense is when in paragraph two
when the narrator states, “I continued, as was my wont, to
smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile
now was at the thought of his immolation.” This part of the
passage establish the suspenseful mood because we, the
reader, are aware of the fact that the narrator is planning
to do something horrible to Fortunato, but we don’t know
what.
 Whenever you cite your evidence in a response, you
must show where it came.
 In essays, not only do you have to tell me what page
Important Note
number your evidence came from, but you also must
make sure you include the author. Doing so will help
prevent plagiarism- which can get you expelled and
even fined!