Grade 8

Narrative

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Geocaching

Conventions

Development/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are run-on sentences, including the last sentence in the brief response.

There are commas missing to separate compound independent clauses (e.g., “One day I decide to go and play so what I did was go and search up scavenger hunts”) and many commas missing after introductory elements (e.g., “When I was looking for more clues there was one missing”). Presumably, the final line contains dialogue that is missing quotation marks (&#8220;contragulations you have won $10,000&#8221;). The density of errors shows minimal control of this convention.

There are no errors with capital letters.

Errors include frequently confused words (&#8220;to/too&#8221;) and incorrect verb tenses/forms (e.g., &#8220;Then I had found”). There are many missing words that interfere with meaning, most of them in incomplete verb phrases (e.g., “I went to ask what I do now”; “so I did and I got”). Given the brevity of the response, these errors show limited control of this convention.

There are few errors with spelling (“geoaching&#8221;; “contragulations”).

The few details included show little to no development (“So I went and I signed up and I went to ask what I do now”). For example, the reader has no idea how the clues work.

The references to geocaching are imprecise and/or reflect misunderstandings about the information in the sources ($10,000 prize).

The response is a brief and vague attempt to retell an event, with no evidence of narrative strategies used to illustrate the experience.

The language is imprecise, vague, and confusing.

There is no evidence of narrative style.

There is little to no actual plot. A storyline is vaguely implied (“search”), and there is at least one complication (missing clue in the tree), but overall, the response is too brief to establish a unified plot.

There is a narrator and first-person point of view, but there is no setting and no dialogue.

The words “so” and “then” are repeated, but they fail to establish meaningful connections.

A chronological sequence is attempted, but the events are strung together (“So I went and I signed up and I went to ask…”) and are too vague to establish a plot.

There is a weak beginning (“One day I decide to go and play so what I did was go and search up scavenger hunts”) and an ending that fails to provide appropriate closure (“they told contragulations you have won $10,000 I was so shocked”).

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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: 5298

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