Grade 4

Informational

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Animal Habitats

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

Near the end of the response, there is a run-on (comma-splice) sentence (“That is just the desert, there are a lot of others”) followed immediately by a sentence fragment (“Like the ocean and the Artie.”)

There are two errors with commas: unnecessary commas around “or” in the fourth sentence and after “spikey plant,” in sentence 8.

There are no capitalization errors.

There are no grammar usage errors.

There are many spelling errors (e.g., “diffrent,” “habitatats,” “Artie”); however, despite many being included in the source materials, some may not be grade 4 words (e.g., “condioners” and “cacttusts”).

The response provides mostly limited use of concrete facts and details from the available source materials.

The source details are unattributed and rely almost exclusively on one source (source #1).

There is an uneven use of elaborative techniques: For example, the use of rhetorical question and the combining of ideas (e.g., &#8220;They don’t need to use air condioners in the desert,&#8221; or &#8220;thermal blankets in the Artie&#8221;) is somewhat effective. However, many details need further explanation (e.g., &#8220;there are a lot of others&#8221; is not adequately explained).

The vocabulary is uneven and simplistic at times (&#8220;animals live on nature and themselves&#8221;).

There is an attempt to engage the reader, and while that attempt is not always consistently effective, it does show awareness of style. For example, &#8220;They don’t need to use air conditioners in the desert or, thermal blankets in the Artic,&#8221; followed by the rhetorical question &#8220;How do they?&#8221; is nice; however, the last few sentences are not effective (&#8220;Well it’s time to leave….So now you know …Bye!&#8221;).

The response has an evident main idea (&#8220;Animals can survive in diffrent and difficult habitatats&#8221;) and maintains that focus throughout.

Varied transitional strategies adequately clarify relationships (&#8220;How do they?&#8221;; &#8220;Other animals&#8230;&#8221;; &#8220;Both of those plans work&#8230;&#8221;).

There is an adequate introduction that establishes an awareness of audience, and although the conclusion is weak, it is present.

There is an evident organizational structure: the response moves from generalizations about the topic, followed by specific examples, reflecting an adequate progression of ideas and contributing to a sense of completeness.

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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 4: Informational – Animal Habitats - ID: 3965

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