Grade 7

Explanatory

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Invasive Species

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There is a sentence formation error with the statement “The reason why they thrive is this, back in their native land there is usually some type of bug….”

There are repeated errors with commas missing after introductory elements (e.g., “When invasive plants are introduced into a new environment sometimes they thrive…”), and there are errors with incorrect/inconsistent placement of punctuation after quotations (e.g., “&#8217;High Point employs goats to eradicate weeds, kudzu’,”).

There is a missing capital at the beginning of a sentence (“this quote that proves that…”).

There is a repeated error with the frequently confused words &#8220;its&#8221; and &#8220;it’s.&#8221; There is a minor (and a frequently ignored) error with adjective/adverb choices (“grow badly” should be “grow poorly”; similarly, “grow so greatly” should be something like “grow so well”).

There are no errors with spelling.

The detail about predators is very vague (bugs and animals that will eat the plant), even though it is repeated in paragraphs 2 and 5. The only specific details are a lengthy quote about goats and kudzu. Given the amount of available evidence, the details included in this response are cursory and poorly integrated.

Quoted text is cited in detail; more general information is not attributed.

The elaboration is cursory. Paragraph 2 is mostly a repetitive summary, rather than an analysis, of information. Paragraph 4 is mostly comprised of a long quote, with the somewhat overstated conclusion that “this quote proves that people are taking a stand against invasive species and such and….” Paragraph 6 provides another quote about ivy and follows it with the generalization “which proves that sometimes plants will grow fast in it&#8217;s new habitat.”

The vocabulary is mostly general (e.g., “and so on,&#8221; “this is due to,” “this quote that proves,” and “This quote was from source one”).

The style is not inappropriate, but there is little to engage the audience. Phrases such as “as I said earlier” and “and so on” somewhat detract from the credibility of the response.

The response is mostly a cursory summary of limited source material, and although the information presented is all relevant, there is no controlling idea on which to sustain a focus.

Transitions are weak. The repeated word “Also” along with “so” and “thus” provide only weak connections.

The beginning takes a line from the prompt and follows with the rhetorical question “Why is this?” But the introduction ends with a weak statement (“I will explain why…and so on”) that provides a weak segue into the body of the essay. The conclusion is very weak, oversimplifying the reasons why some invasive species thrive and others die.

The progression of ideas is weak, in part because the paragraphing is contrived and ineffective (e.g., paragraphs 3 and 4 should be one paragraph, while information in paragraph 6 merely repeats the information in paragraph 2).

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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: 4919

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