Grade 6

Argumentative

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Clean Communities

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

The introduction has some sentence errors, although it’s possible the writer was attempting to use fragments for rhetorical effect (e.g., “That what electronics are doing to our water poising it”). However, the final sentence in that first paragraph, “Trash only makes stuff look ugly, electronics poison the environment and water,” has to be judged as a run-on. Other run-ons include most of paragraph 4. Other sentences demonstrate structural problems, if not technical errors (“unless some plans to recycle old gadgets” should be “unless there are some plans…”).

There are many errors with sentences missing end punctuation, and commas, including commas missing following introductory elements (e.g., “First of all expert state…” and “Next the bulkier the glass the more containment in the water”) and commas missing with compound independent clauses (“Many people say that trash is more dandgerous but their wrong…” and “more and more electronics are made everyday and more and more are thrown away”). The first sentence should end with a question mark. Note that the second sentence in the response (“Imagine this seeing poison in your drinking water so you…”) should have a colon; however, this is not a grade 6 convention. Likewise, the sentence “Trash only makes stuff look ugly, electronics poison the environment and water” would be grammatically correct if it used a semicolon, but that, too, is not a grade 6 convention.

There are missing capitals at the beginning of several sentences (e.g, “technology,” “for,” and “more”).

There are grammar usage errors, including with subject/verb agreement (“expert state”) and an incorrect verb form (“if not recycles” instead of “recycled”). There are also errors with frequently confused words (through/threw; their/they’re), simple plural nouns (“clames,” which should be &#8220;claim&#8221;; “electronic” should be &#8220;electronics&#8221; in the first sentence), and possessive (&#8220;that” instead of &#8220;that’s&#8221;). Overall, the errors in this category are frequent and varied, demonstrating minimal control of grammar usage.

There are some spelling errors (e.g., “poising,&#8221; “dandgerous,” “evidents,” “clames,” “cites,” and “deposes”).

Overall, the details are too general. The few specifics presented are repetitive (e.g., “660 million pounds”) and not well-integrated.

The response seems to reference two sources, but there are no attempts at attributing source materials despite the repeated phrase “expert state.”

The lack of explanation causes confusion in spots (e.g., “Technology causes trouble with the tubes” and “Electronics cause wasteland of old electronics&#8230;”). Other attempts at elaboration are more repetitive/self-evident than effective (e.g., “more and more electronics are made everyday and more and more are thrown away&#8221;).

The vocabulary is weak (e.g., “bulkier the glass” is an imprecise phrase that causes confusion) and/or vague (“stuff”).

There is no evidence of a style appropriate for an argument.

The response fails to make a clear choice between techno-recycling and adopting a highway. The claim, however, is implied at the end (“technology is more dangerous,” thereby implying that techno-recycling would be preferred).

The words (e.g., “First,” “Next,” and “And last”) attempt to connect details in paragraph 2, but the details are listed rather than meaningfully connected. Other than that, there is minimal evidence of transition strategies being used, and the response seems choppy.

The introduction is somewhat effective, with the rhetorical question and hypothetical “Imagine…” engaging the reader. The conclusion, however, is weak and confusing (“…that is what the clames state”).

The details are mostly listed, with little to no cohesion. Some ideas are repeated for no discernable reason. For example, “more and more electronics are made everyday and more and more are thrown away” is the final sentence in both paragraphs 4 and 5.

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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: 5180

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