Grade 8

Narrative

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Geocaching

Conventions

Development/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are no errors with sentence formation. Note that technical run-ons such as “&#8217;Tasha, I’m going geocaching on Saturday care to join?&#8217;” are probably purposeful to simulate authentic dialogue.

There are comma errors, including missing commas after some intro elements (e.g., “&#8217;Yes girl&#8217;” and &#8220;Although she has several pencils she finds this pencil unique&#8221;) and a missing comma to separate compound independent clauses (“Now they are 15 and they both live…”). Although there are not a lot of punctuation errors, given the brevity of the response, this represents only partial control of the convention.

There are no errors with capital letters.

There are errors with subject/verb agreement (e.g., “Olivia ask” and “Olivia and Tasha has been friends”), and &#8220;a numerous amount of&#8221; should be &#8220;a number of&#8221; (or just &#8220;numerous&#8221;).

There are no errors with spelling.

The development of narrative elements is uneven. Details about Olivia and Tasha are nicely developed (e.g., “Olivia and Tasha has been friends since they were in first grade. Now they are 15 and they both live in New York”). The details (those that are not copied) about Olivia’s earlier geocaching experiences are also developed (e.g., information about her pencil from China), but they are marginally relevant to a story about finding something unusual on a geocaching experience.

Background information about geocaching is appropriate to the story, but much of the information is copied rather than used to inform the story.

The dialogue is effective, but the response is too brief to show adequate use of narrative techniques.

Although word choices such as “obsessed” are effective, there are more general and ineffective word choices (e.g., “fun and exciting”). Some phrasing is confusing (“she finds this pencil unique and keeps it up”). These seem like relatively minor weaknesses, but given the brevity of the response, they demonstrate an uneven use of language.

There is one brief attempt at style to engage the reader (“&#8217;Yes girl I would love to go geocaching!&#8217;”), but the second half of the response is more appropriate for an informational piece than a narrative.

There is minimal evidence of a plot. Rather than a “story,” the response is mostly a setup for a possible experience, followed by background information about geocaching. The second half of the response contains copied text and then information that is more like an interview than a story.

There is some information about the characters (Olivia and Tasha) and a vague reference to New York. What follows, however, is a shift in point of view from a narrated story about a character to reporter-like observations about the character. Overall, given the brevity of the response, the narrative elements are too uneven to receive a higher score.

Words such as “Recently” and “Now” advance the brief narrative part of the response; however, the second part of the story is more loosely connected.

The sequence of events is somewhat confusing. The response starts with background information, followed by a brief exchange between Olivia and Tasha. What follows, however, is not a story about finding something unusual on a geocaching adventure, but is instead background (largely copied) information about Olivia’s previous experiences with geocaching.

The opening and closing are unevenly established. The first sentence introduces the narrator and provides appropriate background information. The final sentence, however, sounds more like the conclusion to an interview than a closing to a story. Overall, the strength of the beginning compensates for the weak ending.

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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.

Evidence/Elaboration

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 8: Narrative – Geocaching - ID: 5216

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