Grade 7

Explanatory

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Invasive Species

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are no sentence formation errors.

There are errors with commas, including unnecessary commas (e.g., “I will tell you about the invaders, and the good new-comers” and “…the animals or insects could die, or have to move to a new home”). Failing to use quotation marks for copied/quoted text is a serious error.

There are no errors with capital letters.

There are no errors with grammar usage.

There is some evidence from two sources. The information in paragraph two is paraphrased from Source #1; the information in paragraph three is also paraphrased but comes from Sources #1 and #4. Given the amount of available information, the details selected are limited.

There are citations for information that are directly copied (and missing quotation marks), but there are no further references for general information.

The response is comprised mostly of source details that are paraphrased but minimally developed. For example, the statement “This can affect the entire food web in that area” needs an example to be effective. There are other weaknesses with elaboration as well. The conclusion in paragraph 3 (“not all non-native plants are invasive&#8221;) is true but not valid. An accurate conclusion is that not all non-native species are destructive.

There are some concrete and effective words/phrases (e.g., “invader,” “suffer,” “kept in check,”and “new-comers”) that somewhat compensate for other repetitive, ineffective, and stilted language (e.g., “In this essay I will tell you,” and “In this essay I have taught you”).

The style is uneven, with many effective elements. For example, the writer engages the audience at the start (&#8220;Look into your backyard&#8221;; &#8220;Did you know&#8230;?&#8221;; &#8220;It&#8217;s true!&#8221;) and then re-engages them at the end (&#8220;Next time you&#8230;&#8221;). However, formulaic and repetitive phrases such as “In this essay I will tell you” and “In this essay I have taught you” weaken the style. But despite the distracting artificial statements, overall, the response is adequate for the task.

This concise response presents a self-evident main idea (“Not all non-native species are bad, though. Some are good and useful”), and the details, which summarize some information in two sources, sustain that focus.

Most transitions are logical but formulaic (e.g., paragraph 2 connects ideas with “For one,” “Secondly,” and “Thirdly”; ending with “Now you can see…”).

The introduction has an effective beginning in that it engages the reader and provides background information about the issue. The segue into the body of the essay, however, is somewhat distracting. The conclusion also begins with a distracting and obvious statement (“In this essay I have taught you…”) but ends effectively by coming full circle back to the reader.

The response is concise, and the progression is straightforward from the dangers of some invasive species to not all non-native species are bad. The statement that leads from the body of the essay to the conclusion is imprecise and hence confusing. Nonetheless, the progression is adequate for the task.

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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: 4865

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