Grade 7

Explanatory

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Invasive Species

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are run-on sentences throughout (e.g., “there is no real answer as to why this happens, it’s just simply because some plants are not as hard to manage and are more tame”).

With so little attention paid to sentence conventions, it is difficult to assess punctuation. However, the only obvious punctuation error is an unnecessary comma (“some non-native plants and animals are not as wild or as hard to manage, either”).

There is a minor error with a comparative adjective (“more tame” should be “tamer”).

There is one misspelling (“ther”).

A few general details are listed rather than integrated.

There are no attempts to attribute sources.

Most of the general details included are developed only through very general summary. There is some vague elaboration in a conclusion (“do the ecosystem a favor”) and through a comparison (“it is like how different people have different personalities”).

The vocabulary is limited: word choices are vague (e.g., “move away and find somewhere else”; “every ecosystem needs different plants and animals so that not everything is the same”) and repetitive (e.g., “manage”; “killing”).

There is little if any demonstration of style appropriate for the task. Generalities such as “just more manageable than others, and that’s just the way it is” are more inappropriate than useful for an explanatory essay.

The response has a weak controlling idea that only loosely connects to the sources (the statement “there is no real answer…,” which is a vague idea that is repeated, does not adequately respond to the given task).

“Also,” “either,” and “so, i guess” are the only vague and ineffective transitions offered.

The introduction is weak, offering no controlling idea other than “no real answer.” The weak conclusion is vague and repetitive.

Paragraph two lists the problems of invasive species; paragraph three lists information that suggests invasive species are not a big problem. This progression — the not-so-good and the good — provides limited unity.

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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: 4972

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