Grade 6

Argumentative

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Clean Communities

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There is a single error with a run-on (“However, it is quite aggreeable that driving is not always a choice, afterall many people wouldn&#8217;t want to drive&#8230;”). Note that some sentence structure “errors” (e.g., “Back and forth, back and forth” and “Adopting a highway is an amazing idea for a school&#8217;s community sevice project, why not let it be ours!”) are not oversights but stylistic choices.

There are some punctuation errors, including missing apostrophes for possession (“persons” and “someones”), and a period instead of a question mark at the end of a rhetorical question. There is also a comma placed outside quotation marks used for a title (“&#8217;…Beautiful&#8217;, …”). Although these errors are not insignificant, given the complexity of the writing, the frequency of errors (compared with the writing done well) is low.

There are no errors with capital letters.

There are no grade-specific errors with grammar usage.

There are many spelling errors (e.g., “contstant,” “naturlist,” “aggreeable,” &#8220;educatioinal,” “porgram,” “oppurtunity,” “garunteed,” “sevice,”and “afterall”). Even given the length and complexity of the writing, the many misspellings of grade-appropriate words demonstrate little control of this convention.

There are some specific details, but only from a single source.

Only one direct quote is attributed; other direct quotes, as well as specific details, are unattributed.

Paragraphs 2 and 3 elaborate primarily via drawing “instructive” conclusions (e.g., “We should all do our parts to&#8230; take the lives of other innocent animals easier and safer” and “why not make this drive enjoyable”). Paragraph 4 is a brief summary of the recommended program that is developed with opinion and inference (“I believe that this program would be extremely educatioinal…&#8221; and &#8220;Participation…will result in awareness”).

Overall, the word/phrase choices are strong (e.g., “garunteed (guaranteed)”; “It is no secret”; “basic necessity”). However, there is also some repetition (e.g., “great oppurtunity and a fantastic educational oppurtunity”).

There is evidence of purposeful style. For example, the direct address to the principal (“&#8230;Principal Klein, that adopting a highway is the right thing for our community and our campus“), appeals (“why not let it be ours!”), and a purposeful fragment (“Back and forth, back and forth”) contribute to an effective style.

The claim is clear (“MMS should adopt a highway”), and the subsequent supporting details maintain that position. The ideas are general and repetitive, although they don’t really drift.

Transitions are well-used, making logical connections within and among details.

The introduction effectively provides background information as well as a clear claim. The conclusion is equally effective; it reiterates the importance of adopting a highway without repeating the introduction.

Paragraphs 2 and 3 are somewhat repetitive. They describe the problem of litter on highways, although there is no clear difference in the focus of these two paragraphs, and they both end with a call to “clean the roads.” Paragraph 4 briefly summarizes the Adopt-a-Highway program, which the response advocates. Overall, the progression of ideas is uneven.

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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 6: Argumentative – Clean Communities - ID: 5150

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