Name: ____________________________________________
Date: ____________
RACES Writing Strategy
R—Restate the question
*Use the language from the prompt, title, and
author if applicable
Your hook (descriptive, short effective statement, thought-provoking rhetorical
question, interesting fact or statistic):
A—Answer the question
*This creates your thesis statement*
Your thesis statement:
C—Cite relevant evidence that
supports the answer
Relevant evidence (Is this a sufficient amount of evidence?):
Possible sentence starters:
 According to the author,
 According to the text,
 From the reading,
 The author said/stated…
 For example,
 For instance,
 Paragraph ___ states…
 On page ___ of the text,
*The above sentence starters are transitions.
These and other transitions should be used at
the beginning of your body paragraphs and
throughout.
(THAWWUBBISE) Therefore, however, after,
while, when, until, before, because, if, since,
even though)
E—Explain the reason you
chose the evidence and how it
supports to your thesis
statement.
Explanation of evidence (Is your evidence explained thoroughly?):
Possible sentence starters:
 This evidence proves…
 This evidence shows…
 These facts indicate…
 These facts demonstrate…
S—Sum up your final thoughts
How? Summarize, emphasize, counterclaim, call
to action, end with a “new” final thought or
idea
Possible sentence starters:
 In summary,
 In conclusion,
 To summarize,
 Finally,
 To sum it up,
Some final thoughts:
*Now, read your writing aloud. As you read, make any changes that are required to
make ALL of your sentences make sense, AND correct any capitalization, punctuation,
or other grammar errors. (Comma before conjunction in COMPOUND sentences,
comma after transitions, “you,” “a lot,” “there, their, and they’re,” NO comma before
the word because, quotation marks and ellipsis used correctly, etc.)