Teach students to ACE their responses with this collection of mini-lessons that guides them to utilize their own knowledge to construct clear, cohesive comments. ACE is an acronym for “Answer the question, Cite evidence, and Elaborate.” At the heart of ACE are eight elaboration strategies that stimulate deeper critical thinking. Each mini-lesson provides explicit instruction, scaffolds and sentence starters, plus reproducible activity sheets to help students master short-response writing.

In her 17 years in public education, Grace Long has enjoyed each role as an elementary school teacher, middle school teacher, reading specialist, instructional coach, and assistant principal. Grace has also been a speaker and consultant, providing professional learning sessions to numerous schools throughout California. She received her B.A. and M.A. degrees in Sociology and Education at the University of California, Los Angeles. Grace’s hope is to continue to impact and inspire all learners, including her three children at home. This is her first book for Scholastic.