Grade 4

Opinion

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Thunderstorms

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

The first sentence is a run-on. The other “sentences&#8221; in the response are not structurally correct sentences, in part because they make little sense because words such as “Then” and “After” are misused.

The second sentence lacks commas to separate four independent clauses. Given the brevity of the response, this indicates a lack of control for this convention.

The response fails to use consistent capital letters for proper nouns (Colorado).

There is an error with the frequently confused words &#8220;its&#8221; and &#8220;it’s&#8221;. Given the brevity of the response, only partial command of this convention is evident.

There are two spelling errors: “alot” and “overthere”.

The very brief response uses little source evidence, and some details are used inaccurately (although the sources state that Colorado weather is hard to predict, the sources do not state that you “can’t know when thunderstorms are going to come”; in fact, paragraph 5 explains the thunderstorm patterns in the mountains).

There is little reference to source materials and no attempt to attribute the information.

There is no development of the few details included (for example, the relevance of “alot of rain” and “only 60 inches tall” is unexplained).

The language used is weak and confusing.

The response is too brief to demonstrate any style appropriate for the task.

There is a clear opinion (“I want to live in Florida”), but the response is too brief to be cohesive.

Words such as “Then” and “After” are not accurately used.

The opinion is mixed with the first supporting detail, and there is no conclusion or ending for this brief response.

There are too few details to demonstrate any purposeful progression of ideas.

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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 4: Opinion – Thunderstorms - ID: 5349

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