Grade 3

Opinion

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Islands

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are no grade 3-appropriate errors with sentences (run-on sentences are not considered errors until grade 4).

There are no grade 3-appropriate errors with punctuation (commas in compound sentences and following introductory elements are not grade 3 errors).

There are no errors with capitalization.

There are no errors with  spelling.

Responsibility for subject/verb agreement begins in grade 3 as a “language progression skill,” meaning competency with the skills is dependent on the complexity of sentence compared with the grade level. Arguably, “there is soft, sandy beaches” has enough distance between the subject and verb to be above grade 3 level; however, the subject and verb in “there is vines” are close enough that the lack of agreement should count as an error. There are no other grade 3-appropriate errors in this category (3rd graders are not accountable for frequently confused words such as “your” for &#8220;you’re&#8221;).
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As would be expected, most of the details in this response come from source 2, about warm islands. However, paragraph 2 also references source 1, explaining what the writer deems as inferior food offerings on cold islands compared with what’s available on warm islands.

There are no specific attributions to the source materials (a distinctive weakness for this score point, but representing only one bullet point on the rubric).

There is some elaboration, although it is uneven. Paragraph 2 has no elaboration, although the writer has made some implied value judgments about preferable food. Paragraphs 3 &amp; 4 show some elaboration via inferences: “you don’t need as many clothes,” (although it’s not clear why that’s an advantage), and “vines to climb” (again, explaining that climbing vines would be fun would help).

The language use is general and often self-evident (“The island heat is a lot warmer than the cold islands”), and the repetitive transitions are distracting.

There is evidence of an emerging sense of (if not skill with) style: the rhetorical questions used to frame the essay attempt to engage the reader with a conversational style. Otherwise, the style is overall perfunctory but consistent. When considering the overall rubric descriptors, this essay edges into the score point 3 category.

There is a clear statement of opinion (“warm islands”), and the rhetorical question (“You want to know why?”) is used to set up the road map for the essay.

The last sentence in the introduction provides a transition that sounds artificial (“keep reading to find out…”). The transitions between paragraphs are predictable and repetitive (“The first/second/third reason I want to visit”). And the final sentence in each body paragraph echoes the first sentence (“That’s the first/second/last reason I want to visit”), rendering these transitions more distracting than appropriate. Internal transitions in paragraphs 2 and 3 are subtle (“On cold islands….But on warm islands…” and “If….than [then]…”), but in paragraph 4, they once again become needlessly repetitive (“first of all…second of all…last of all…”). Although the redundant and artificial transitions diminish the effectiveness of this response, it has enough qualities of a score point 3 to move into that scoring category.

Although the introduction is perfunctory, it is adequate. The conclusion, however, is inadequate, posing a rhetorical question that is ineffective to conclude an essay, providing only a limited sense of completeness.

The progression of ideas does maintain the focus (and roadmap) described in the introduction.

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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 3: Opinion – Islands - ID: 431

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