Grade 4

Opinion

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Thunderstorms

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There is a run-on sentence (“Then, by the time you get your snow stuff on it could be perfectly warm and sunny then by the time you get your shorts and tank top on it could be pouring rain”). The second sentence (“Colorado, well you never know”) can be assumed to be a stylistic fragment.

There are several missing commas separating compound independent clauses (e.g. “There might be more thunderstorms in Florida but when there isn’t one you could get your bathing suit on…”). Given the brevity of the response, these demonstrate partial control of punctuation.

There is a missing capital at the beginning of a sentence (“you…”) and a failure to consistently capitalize the personal pronoun &#8220;I&#8221;.

There are no grade-specific errors with grammar usage.

Given the amount of available specific data, the response shows a weak use of evidence to support the opinion, relying instead on generalities (Florida has the most thunderstorms, which is a generality from both Source 1 and 3, and Colorado has unpredictable weather).

Although there are references to at least two of the sources, there are no attributions.

Although the response is brief, there is some development. Some details are developed with connections to prior knowledge (e.g., “go to Disneyland&#8221;) and some inferences. For example, the response addresses the downside of thunderstorms in Florida by drawing an inference that thunderstorms are more prevalent near the coast, so the writer would move inland. This inference that “the beach…is where the thunderstorms are” could be from the detail that “currents over water” come “into contact with ocean breeze” and push “this heavy air up into the cooler sky, causing an unstable state which leads to lightning and thunder.” That inference is not strongly text-based, but it is not illogical either.

Considering the brevity of the response, the overall language use is weak, with some vague language (e.g., “a lot more fun”; “snow stuff”) and some repetition (e.g. “There”; “If”).

The style is somewhat inconsistent. For example, the second sentence (“Colorado, well you never know”) is a nice appeal to the audience, yet the ending (“And that&#8217;s why…”) and the repeated causal sentences (“If…”) weaken that appeal.

The opinion is a clear choice (“would rather live in Florida”), but the support primarily focuses on listing the negative weather in Colorado. It never does support the stated idea that Florida would be “more fun.”

There are very few transitions, (“There” and “If”) with ideas mostly listed.

There is a clear opinion, but the introduction itself is brief and vague (“it is a lot more fun”). The weak conclusion does nothing more than repeat the opinion (“And that&#8217;s why…”).

The response relies on listing the negatives of Colorado weather, progressing to a vague statement at the end about choosing to live “far from the beach.” However, there are no drifts from the focus.

Content Explorer

Sample Items Website

Tools for Teachers

Smarter Reporting

Remote Teaching and Learning

More Resources for Teachers

Privacy

Diversity, Inclusion & Equity

Web Accessibility Statement

Policy

Instagram

YouTube

Pinterest

Twitter

Facebook

Connect

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

Donec sed odio dui. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum. Nulla vitae elit libero, a pharetra augue. Nullam id dolor id nibh ultricies vehicula ut id elit. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

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 4: Opinion – Thunderstorms - ID: 5335

More Resources for Teachers

Connect

Policy