Writing a GREAT Short Answer Response! ACE Method: Writing a GREAT Short Answer Response!

Ace mETHOD Answer Cite Elaborate/Explain When you have a short answer or constructed response question after reading use the following acronym: Answer Cite Elaborate/Explain

How to use ACE: Restate and Answer the question asked in the prompt. Then Cite textual evidence (return to the reading and find at least one quote direct or indirect), which supports your answer. Finally, Explain and Elaborate on your answer and the textual evidence you have provided.

Why? A well-written response will carefully analyze the text, offer textual evidence from the piece(s) that will directly support your answer, and will explain how this evidence supports your answer.

Direct Quote Direct Quote- A direct quote is a quote in which you copy an author's words directly (word for word). Direct quotes will be surrounded by quotation marks. For Example: "I couldn't laugh; I couldn't applaud; it filled me with bitterness to have others do it and to have people make a hero of Hicks and the people around him" (659). 

Indirect Quote Indirect Quote - An indirect quote is a quote in which you paraphrase (put what the author is saying into your own words). For Example: Twain was unable to laugh or applaud, because he was so angry that Hicks could be mesmerized and he could not (659).

Example: Question: In “A Sound of Thunder”, why does Travis kill eckels? Answer: Travis kills eckels at the end of “A Sound of Thunder” because he blames Eckels for altering the future. Cite: When Lesperance asks Travis to go easy on Eckels for stepping off the path, Travis Cries, “This fool nearly killed us…He ran off the Path. That ruins us!...Who knows what he’s done to Time, to history!” (48). Explain: If Eckels had stayed on the path, like Travis warned him to, he would not have stepped on the butterfly and altered the future. Travis kills him as punishment for his actions.

Travis kills Eckels at the end of “A Sound of Thunder” because he blames Eckels for altering the future. When Lesperance asks Travis to go easy on Eckels for stepping off the path, Travis cries, “This fool nearly killed us…He ran off the Path. That ruins us!...Who knows what he’s done to Time, to history!” (48). If Eckels had stayed on the path, like Travis warned him to, he would not have stepped on the butterfly and altered the future. Travis kills him as punishment for his actions.