My students have an easier time writing about fiction texts than they do non-fiction texts.  The initial thought was that, at least in English class, students read more fiction.  But in their day-to-day reading throughout the school day, they read more non-fiction.  So why were my students struggling to write about non-fiction texts when most of their day was spent reading it? Looking at the curriculum, students read poetry, short stories, novels, novellas, and a lot of choice books.  The hole was staring at me in the face.  There was very little devoted to reading non-fiction. That was when my teaching partner and I spent some time figuring out how to help our students respond to non-fiction texts and settled on the acronym RACER.  The idea of this is not new.  You can conduct an internet search for RACE or RACER and see lots of ideas out there.  In my school, when students write about fictional texts, they use the CER format.  Acronyms help in memorization, and I wanted students to think CER = fiction; …