Grade 4

Informational

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Animal Habitats

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

The third sentence of the response is a fragment.

There are many missing commas to separate independent clauses, too many to list (e.g., “The enviorment would be under the sea and its’ ecosystem would be in enenamy.“ and “…your enviorment is on Earth and your Ecosystem is most likely in a house…” and several others). There is also an unnecessary apostrophe to show possession with an already possessive form: “its’ ecosystem.”

There are a couple of unnecessary (and inconsistent) uses of capital letters (&#8220;Enviorment,&#8221; &#8220;Ecosystem&#8221;); however, there are no grade level capitalization errors.

There is a missing article in the first sentence before “ecosystem.” There is also an error with the frequently confused words there and their (“there tree” instead of their tree).

There are many spelling errors “enviorment,” “tempatcher,” “enenamy,” “squarles,” “collectig,” “te,” “bild,” “tyey,” “some thing” (instead of something), etc.

The response supports a limited main idea with an overall limited use of available information from the sources.

Source details are unattributed, but they do come from more than one source.

Some evidence from the sources is weakly integrated with the writer’s own examples and explanations (clown fish, birds fly south), and there is some attempted elaboration (e.g., comparing the environment/ecosystem of a clown fish to that of a human).

The [laudable] attempt to paraphrase source materials results in some simplistic language (&#8220;Another animal is a bird. They live with squiarls in trees…&#8221;) and possible misinterpretation (&#8220;…and its’ ecosystem would be in enenamy&#8221;).

There is also a budding sense of style (&#8220;Ecosystem is basicly where you live…&#8221;; &#8220;For you, your environment is on Earth…and maybe in your own bedroom&#8221;).

There is an evident if simplistic main idea (definitions for &#8220;ecosystem&#8221; &amp; &#8220;environment&#8221;), with the details focusing on examples of animals and their survival. The attempt to differentiate between an ecosystem and an environment, however, reflects some confusion: &#8220;For you, your enviorment is on Earth and your Ecosystem is most likely in a house and maybe in your own bed room.&#8221;

Some transitions attempt to provide connections (&#8220;For example&#8221;; &#8220;Another…&#8221;; &#8220;…so&#8221;; &#8220;…and this is…&#8221;).

The first two sentences provide an introduction that attempts to give definitions, but the conclusion is weak (&#8220;I hope you learned something new&#8221;).

The response attempts to provide examples of the interaction between environment, ecosystem, and survival, but the overall progression is weakened by the confusing definitions of these.

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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: 4003

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