<ul>
<li>All released anchors come from the pilot test, which did not specifically ask students to cite sources or to use multiple sources. Current Performance Tasks specifically tell students to use multiple sources and to attribute information to reference materials.</li>
<li>The sources on the pilot test differed from those on the practice test. The pilot test included a video. Information from the video was the basis for Source #1 on the practice test.</li>
</ul>

Grade 5

Opinion

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Service Animals

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There no grade-relevant errors with sentence formation.

There are punctuation errors with new-to-grade comma rules, including a missing comma in the final item of a series (&#8220;&#8230;handing him cool drinks, playing a CD and turning the lights on&#8230;&#8221;) and missing commas after introductory elements (&#8220;In the first passage&#8230;&#8221;; &#8220;In the second passage&#8230;&#8221;).

There are no errors with capitals.

There are grammar usage errors including several errors with frequently confused words (&#8220;aloud&#8221; for &#8220;allowed,&#8221; &#8220;of&#8221; for &#8220;off,&#8221; &#8220;their&#8221; for &#8220;there&#8221;) and an error with pronouns (&#8220;&#8230;girl that needed&#8230;&#8221; instead of &#8220;girl who needed&#8230;&#8221;).

There are some spelling errors of common words (&#8220;freindly,&#8221; &#8220;writen,&#8221; &#8220;passeges,&#8221; &#8220;whilechair&#8221;).

The response provides minimal evidence for the stated opinion (&#8220;…because they can be helpful in handing people things and being freindly&#8221;).

The response does attribute some minimal and general information to a single specific source.

There is nearly no development of the ideas. For example, paragraph 3 relies solely on a brief summary of the help offered by capuchin monkeys. In paragraph 4, the reference to source #2 is irrelevant as used (dolphins are not service animals as defined in the law); furthermore, the information is inaccurately summarized (the girl did not need help swimming).

Language is simplistic and at times vague (e.g., &#8220;&#8230;they can be helpful in handing people things&#8230;&#8221;).

There is no evidence of any style.

While there is a clear opinion (&#8220;I think that other animals should be aloud in public because they can be helpful in handing people things and being freindly like it is writenin the following passeges&#8221;), the response is too brief and does not maintain the focus.

Other than “In the first/second passage” and “And that is why…” there are no transitions to connect the few details.

There is a brief introduction that explains what the support will be, and there is a brief, repetitive conclusion (&#8220;other animals should be aloud in public&#8221;).

The progression of ideas is inadequate: the support offered seems random with no sentence-to-sentence cohesion. Furthermore, although the first support maintains the focus of the response, the second support (&#8220;So a group of dolphins helped her swim&#8221;) does not maintain the focus (dolphins are not the kind of service animal that would accompany an owner in public).

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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 5: Opinion – Service Animals - ID: 4024

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