<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

Paragraph 4 isn’t technically a sentence fragment but it is incomplete. Paragraph 5 is a run-on sentence.

There is an unnecessary comma between &#8220;is&#8221; and &#8220;because&#8221; in paragraph 1 and a missing comma after an introductory element (&#8220;&#8230;if the rule were to stay people would stay unharmed&#8221;).

There are no capitalization errors.

Missing antecedents make some of the response unclear (e.g., “This law protects people from getting sick and is a trouble to their owners who carry them around everyday.”).

There are only a few spelling errors (e.g., “peole,” “everyday,” and “resturant&#8221;).

There are a few relevant details, but they fail to develop adequate support for the opinion.

There are vague references to information from the source materials (disease, monkeys, restaurant), but they are unattributed.

There is nearly no development of ideas. The response includes incomplete, and therefore confusing, ideas (e.g., &#8220;dog also sits quietly at shows and things so the&#8221;) and some illogical, as explained, inferences (&#8220;[snake] could swallow someone whole!&#8221;).

Some of the vocabulary is so vague that it could cause confusion. For example, failing to clarify what is meant by the “new” law and “the law should stay” or “if the rule were to stay” is confusing. The use of the word “sheltering” does not compensate for the overall weak language use.

The response states a general opinion (&#8220;I think the new law is very reasonable&#8221;), but fails to clarify what that new law is. Furthermore, there are subsequent references, such as &#8220;if the rule were to stay,&#8221; which cause potential confusion about the opinion.

Some transitions are present (&#8220;also&#8221;; &#8220;But&#8221;; &#8220;Besides&#8221;), but they are repetitive, and ideas seem randomly presented.

The response provides a brief and weak introduction and conclusion that state (and repeat) a simplistic general opinion.

The body of the article begins with a clear focus, but that focus is not fully sustained as minor drifts are evident (&#8220;This law protects people from getting sick and is a trouble to their owners who carry them around everyday, and [a snake] could swallow someone whole!&#8221;).

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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: 4034

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