Grade 7

Explanatory

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Invasive Species

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

Given the brevity of the response, minimal control of sentence formation is demonstrated. There are fragments (e.g., “Kudzu a fast-growing vine from Japan that is related to a pea” and “Because its a serious weed in the southeastern U.S.”) and run-on sentences (e.g., “Invasive plants harmful and helpful, without them we would not have the ecosystem”).

There are many punctuation errors, including missing commas separating compound independent clauses (e.g., “You’re walking with a friend in the park and you spot a…”), a comma missing with nonrestrictive information (e.g., “another food item is wheat which is used in items”), commas missing to separate introductory information, incorrect punctuation for a list, and missing apostrophes for possession (e.g., “worlds most popular” and “the tomatoes leaves”).

There are no errors with capital letters.

There are errors with the articles &#8220;a&#8221; and &#8220;an&#8221; (e.g., “a apple,” “a animal,” and “a invader”). There are also some verb tense errors (e.g., “do you know you just come face-to-face”), and errors with frequently confused words &#8220;its&#8221; and &#8220;it’s&#8221;, and &#8220;their&#8221; and &#8220;they’re.&#8221; Despite the variety of errors, the response overall demonstrates control of grammar usage.

The details included are picked somewhat randomly and then assigned to a different paragraph according to the source. There is little, if any, integration of information adequate for an explanatory essay.

Although there are references to specific information from the source materials, there are no efforts to attribute them.

There is little, if any, elaboration. The only true elaboration is the inference drawn in paragraph three about pizza and bagels being consequences of invasive species. Most details are summarized from the sources with little to no development. As one example, paragraph four summarizes information about the tomato but never comments or observes that the tomato is an example of a positive outcome of species invasion.

Some awkward constructions weaken the response (e.g., “When mentioned in 1544, the herbalist to them…”), but overall, the vocabulary is adequate.

There is some evidence of an awareness of style, especially in the introduction, which begins by drawing the reader in with a bite of an apple. The second paragraph likewise begins with “You might be wondering.” The conclusion also shows some evidence of audience awareness by appealing to “we” and “us.” Some other phrases such as “like I was saying” detract somewhat but not enough to lower the score in this category.”

The response is primarily a summary of source materials, providing a general overview of the issue. The information is all relevant but not unified enough to provide a cohesive explanatory essay.

Words such as “also,” “When mentioned in,” “And,” and “Because” connect ideas, but because the details are random, the connections do little to promote unity.

The introduction is effective in engaging the reader with a hypothetical situation and a rhetorical question. What follows is a definition of “invasive species.” The only controlling idea comes at the end of the conclusion, which begins by inaccurately summarizing the information (e.g., there is no mention of invasive species affecting water and shelter) and ends with the vague observation that invasive species “shaped us to what we are today.”

The sequencing of details is weak. In particular, the paragraphs seem randomly constructed. For example, paragraphs 3 and 4 deal with food, and it would seem logical to combine them; but the information on “wheat” comes from a different source than does the information on tomatoes. So rather than combine like details to develop a logical progression, the response separates them. Overall, the essay is little more than an inventory of random facts.

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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: 4933

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