The Delicious RACER to the Five-Paragraph Essay

When introducing this During activity to students, the teacher should refer back to the slideshow provided in the materials section. The teacher can require students to take notes during the slideshow presentation if desired.  As a class, go over the meaning of each letter of RACER and then present the prompt at hand.

With the slideshow on the slide of the first “R” of the acronym, students should, with their teacher, brainstorm ways to restate the prompt without giving away their answer. If the prompt presented (taken from associated Before Activity) is “Based on the residents’ reactions from the "boom" in "Monsters are Due on Maple Street,” which character sounds the most suspicious, like they may have something to do with the strange phenomena? Find three (3) pieces of text evidence to help support your answer,” then the restated prompt could be “In the play ‘Monsters are Due on Maple Street,’ there is a series of strange phenomena that happen that eventually make our main characters turn their backs on their closest neighbors.” Emphasize to students that this statement restates the prompt, but leaves readers wanting to know the answer because we have not given it away yet.

Now, the teacher will lead the student to develop an answer. “Since these neighbors have turned on each other in the face of chaos, it is to be assumed that _________ is the main culprit for this.” (Tell students to fill in the blank with their answer.)

Give students access to the play itself (paper copies or online PDF), and tell them that it is now time to start finding evidence on the character they find to be the most at fault. (Teachers can provide accommodations here with self-made sheets for each character where all or the most important quotes that each character said are included.) 

Have students either find quotes their character in question said or quotes someone else said about their character in order to best frame them. Have them list these in numbers 3, 5, and 7  on the graphic organizers.

After, have a whole-class discussion, allowing peers to check each other, or go around the room and review student responses as a formative assessment. 

Let students know the next section is where they have the most flexibility, as they can easily earn extra sentences here, but it is also the section that requires the most thought. They can have a wonderful answer and text evidence pieces, but if one cannot make those connect, the paragraph will not sustain. Give students time to independently work - explaining why the pieces of evidence they chose are the best examples to prove their character guilty. 

Finally, have students take a look at their first “Restate” and tell them to mimic that for the last “Restate,” but use transition words that bring that paragraph to a close rather than introduce (Example: “In this case, _______ is to blame for all the madness in the play.” (Insert framed character’s name in the blank.) 

Students will perform this process for each Body Paragraph 1, 2, and 3 (show slides from the slideshow on each body paragraph as you introduce, teach, and allow them to work – reminding them of how they found evidence in the first learning activity where they were given a character to frame). “Now… onto Hooks and Transition Words (show them Slideshow on these again). We have words that sound casual and others that sound more formal and permanent.”

Explain to students that they need an ending transition word for the start of each conclusion sentence, leaving the most impactful one for the ending paragraph. 

I recommend teaching the body paragraph sections first, then having students go back, as you restate the rules on an intro paragraph on the slideshow. “You will use the same “Restate” in the beginning, but after coming up with your three (3) body paragraphs, condense those to a singular reason why your character is guilty and simply list them in your intro – we CANNOT have evidence pieces in our intro paragraph, as it gives away too much information right off the bat; we want our readers to want to read our whole essay to eventually reach all of our answers.”

Give students time to rewrite their Restated prompt, list their three (3) main reasons for framing, turn those into sentences that you then need to vaguely explain, and then rewrite their final restate as listed in their body paragraphs

Explain to them that their conclusion paragraph is exactly the same, but we need to change the words so as to not sound robotic or boring. 

“We will use our same first restated sentence and reasons, but our final sentence needs to be strong, stand out, and give a feeling of finalizing. For example, “In the end, the residents of Maple Street are deeply troubled not only over the events that occurred, but also because the real villain at hand lives among them – ______.”

Give students time to work on this and finalize their graphic organizer.