Grade 7

Explanatory

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Invasive Species

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are no errors with sentence formation.

There are many errors with missing commas to separate compound independent clauses, and several errors with missing commas following introductory elements (an example of both types of comma errors, “After a couple of years the kudzu took over the fence and it is no longer visible”). There are also errors with unnecessary commas (“They can crowd native plants, but are always adding new things…”). Despite the many comma errors, they represent just one type of punctuation. There are also two errors with missing apostrophes (“lets”).

There are missing capitals at the beginning of two sentences (“that”) and an unnecessary capital for a common noun (“Kudzu”).

There are errors with plurals (e.g., “Then the animals that feed off of that plants”) and some unclear pronoun references (“the soil holding down the ballast can have seeds in it without them knowing…” and “…the kudzu took over the fence and it is no longer visible. They then brought in goats…”). Overall, however, errors in this category are minor and infrequent.

There are some specific and accurate details from source materials that are somewhat integrated. Several details are inaccurately presented (e.g., understating the importance of spreading kudzu in North Carolina) or poorly integrated (the idea of “managing” non-native species).

Although various sources are referenced, there is no attempt to attribute the information.

Although the details included are adequately summarized, there is virtually no other development. For example, the source detail “non-native plants in New Zealand…have only wiped out three…native plants” is followed by the statement “that shows that non-native plants do not always wipe out a bunch of native plants.” This is an example of obvious restatement, not adequate elaboration. In other places, the failure to develop details causes confusion (e.g., “non-native plants can also be easily managed” and “adding the things to our food web every day”).

Most of the stronger language choices come directly from the sources (e.g., “transported”), but there are some concrete words (“destination”; “in check”; “migrate”; “typically”). Overall, there is some vague language use (“adding the things to our food web”) and repetition (“purpose”; “accident”; “wiped out”) that keep the response from earning a higher score for this trait.

The style is mechanical and repetitive. While not inappropriate for the task, the repetition discourages audience engagement.

The response initially includes a controlling idea supporting the idea that non-native species are not necessarily bad, and that central idea is generally validated in the conclusion (“not always are,&#8221; &#8220;not usually,&#8221; and &#8220;always adding new things,”). The supporting evidence is mostly relevant but repetitive.

Transitions are mixed. There are some effective and varied transitions to connect ideas (e.g., “Yes…But…Before”; “For an example…Then…As you can see”; “if…then”), but there is also some repetition between ideas that weakens the unity (the word “then” is overused). Overall, however, the transitions are adequate.

The introduction is adequate, suggesting that the response will focus on proving or disproving that invasive species are “bad.” The conclusion is a confusing repetition of vague ideas (“not always,&#8221; &#8220;not usually,&#8221; and &#8220;always adding”), providing a weak ending to the response.

The response moves clearly from a summary of how non-native species invade, to a summary of the dangers of non-native species invasion, and finally to a summary of harmless non-native species invasions. The response, however, loses focus at the end of paragraph four by failing to explain the statement about managing non-native species.

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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 7: Explanatory – Invasive Species - ID: 4776

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