Grade 11

Explanatory

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Sunflower

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

Although there is only one formal sentence error (e.g., “See this what i don’t understand we have all these people working to fix a problem but what happens when they fix it and the people that worked on that problem lose there jobs?”), few if any sentences are structured well (e.g., “I agree not personally of course but for this paper i have too”).
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There are errors in grammar usage including errors with verbs  (e.g., “fix” instead of “fixed”), a problem with the unnecessary use of the passive voice in the first sentence, and missing verbs (“See this [is] what…”). Additionally, there are errors with frequently confused words (e.g., “Its”/&#8221;it’s,&#8221; “Ill”/&#8221;I’ll,&#8221; “too”/&#8221;to,&#8221; “there”/&#8221;their,&#8221; and “effect”/&#8221;affect&#8221; – all words that are below-grade level).

The writer misspells “apperently” multiple times.

In the second paragraph, the first word in a sentence lacks a capital (“but…”), the personal pronoun “i” lacks a capital, and “the midwest” should have a capital.
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There are missing commas in several sentences (e.g., in compound sentences: “I agree not personally of course but for this paper i have too” and after introductory elements: “Apperently they’d make diesel techs become biotechs” and “If we created a biofuel to power diesel tractors farmers would most likely…”).

This response provides minimal and sometimes confusing support for ideas. Concrete evidence from the source material is missing, and there are no citations/attributions. In part because there is no thesis, the weak use of elaborative techniques fails to develop relevant support (e.g., “See this what i don’t understand we have all these people working to fix a problem but what happens when they fix it and the people that worked on that problem lose there jobs?”). Rather than elaborate, the writer summarizes and/or provides illogical inferences (e.g., “If we created a biofuel to power diesel tractors farmers would most likely teach themselves to fix the machines.”).

Vocabulary is limited and ineffective for audience and purpose, and there is no evidence of an appropriate style (e.g., “Farmers would kill for,” “save some green,” and “I guess…”).

The response provides little or no organizational structure with an unclear focus. Instead of a thesis, the response provides a vague main idea (e.g., “Its been said that using a sunflower would be a smart new biofuel”).

The few transitional strategies (e.g., “So…,” “See this [is] what…,” “but at the same time&#8230;”) fail to further a progression of ideas.

The introduction is weak and the conclusion is missing.

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An annotation is the educator’s explanation of how a portion of the student’s response relates to the rubric and contributes to that trait’s score. For example, the educator might explain how the response meets the expectations of a specific score point. An annotation can also describe aspects of a student response that relate to multiple score points on the rubric to demonstrate nuance when determining a score.

Annotation

One of three traits scored for the ELA performance task full write, this trait measures a student’s ability to demonstrate command of grade-level conventions of standard English: grammar usage (including sentence formation), capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.

This trait measures students’ ability to select and integrate details that support, explain, illustrate, or develop ideas. Students should elaborate these details—that is, explain and connect them, guided by the writing purpose and audience needs.
For informative/explanatory and opinion/argumentative writing purposes, these details come from source materials.
For narrative writing, this trait is called Development/Elaboration, and students are expected to integrate and develop grade-appropriate story elements such as descriptive details and dialogue. For these tasks, events and experiences are inspired by source materials.

This trait measures students’ ability to establish and sustain a focus for the writing. This focus should be consistent with the task’s designated purpose and the intended audience. Strong introductions and conclusions (or, for narrative writing, beginnings and endings) and transitions help to create coherence.

Performance tasks measure a student’s ability to demonstrate critical-thinking and problem-solving skills by challenging students to apply their knowledge and skills to complex, real-world problems. In the performance task, students are presented with a collection of questions and activities connected to a single theme or scenario. These activities ask students to demonstrate capacities such as depth of understanding, writing and research skills, and complex analysis, which cannot be adequately assessed with traditional assessment questions. Performance tasks are taken on a computer (but are not computer adaptive) and take students one to two class periods to complete.

Performance Task

The prompt is the text provided to the student that requests their response. It includes some contextual information, but also includes a specific task that students complete in their writing response.

Prompt

For a deeper dive into the content behind this student response, navigate to the Sample Items Website to access the writing prompt or visit the Content Explorer to learn more about this content area.

Prompt & Target

“Purpose” is the context for a piece of writing, or what the writer intends to accomplish. Students write texts with the following purposes:
<ul>
<li>Narrative (grades 3–8): tell a story</li>
<li>Informational (grades 3–5): present facts or data using source material</li>
<li>Explanatory (grades 6–11): explain a topic or concept by analyzing source materials</li>
<li>Opinion (grades 3–5): present and defend a position</li>
<li>Argumentative (grades 6–11): present an argument using research to form and support claims</li>
</ul>
Purposes have subtle differences depending on grade, and each writing purpose has its own scoring rubric.

Purpose

This text was written by a student in response to a Performance Task writing prompt.

Response

A rubric is a set framework for scorers to reference when determining the quality of student writing. Each trait has its own rubric, and every point value is defined in detail with examples of what to expect from student writing at each level.

Rubric

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Sample Term One

Sample Term Two

Traits are different dimensions of a student response that educators evaluate when scoring. For example, an educator will assess grammar and spelling as part of the Conventions trait (maximum of two score points) but not take grammar or spelling into account when assessing the other traits. This approach ensures that scorers evaluate student writing from multiple angles.

Example for Grade 11: Explanatory – Sunflower - ID: 1170

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