Grade 4

Opinion

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Thunderstorms

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are many sentence fragments. However, there is a difference between a clear fragment (e.g., “With its dramatic weather changes give you a bit of everything”) and other fragments such as “Some sun here a little rain there and some snow to end the day” and “In Orlando!” which seem to be style choices and not errors. There is also a run-on (“Well see you later, I’m going to sunny sunny always sunny Florida!”), which again is arguably purposeful. Sentences such as “With its dramatic weather changes give you a bit of everything” show errors with sentence formation primarily because they either use the wrong word or are missing words (the previous sentence should be “With its dramatic weather changes IT gives you a bit of everything&#8221;).

There are many errors with punctuation marks, including commas missing to separate compound independent clauses (“Florida is nice with its sun sometimes but I’d rather stick with Colorado”; “You might not approve of my choice but some places may have almost one every day&#8230;”). There is a missing apostrophe for the contracted form “let&#8217;s”, and not all rhetorical questions use question marks (“What do you mean thunderstorm capital”). There is a lack of commas for a series (“Some sun here a little rain there and some snow to end the day”). Other punctuation devices (e.g., the semicolon) are inaccurately used but not grade-appropriate. The overuse of exclamation points is also somewhat distracting but not an error, and consistent inappropriate spaces before/after punctuation is distracting but more of a typographical error than a lack of control of punctuation conventions.

The response is missing capitals to begin some sentences (“think about it…”; “thanks to this story…”) and lacks capital letters for the personal pronoun &#8220;I&#8221;. In addition, the word “park” should be capitalized as used here (“Disney park”).

There are no grade-specific errors with grammar usage.

The word “of” should be “off.”

The use of specific relevant details is adequate. There is occasional awkwardness that causes confusion (“…some places may have almost one every day while other places might have only one a month”), and some details are oversimplified (&#8220;It’s all thanks to the wind,” a fact that actually applies to both Florida and Colorado). But on the other hand, some details included show synthesis not typically found at this grade level (“In some parts of Florida there are over 80 days with thunder and lightning in a typical year but in Colorado you get more than 300 days of sweet sunshine…”).

Although there are clear references to multiple source materials, there is no attempt made to attribute the information.

The development of text details is primarily through an abundance of editorial comments (“I don’t think that the snow is all that bad though.think about it; skiing,sledding, snowmen,and snowball fights!”; “Take me of the waiting list for the houses there!”; “My parents would really hate that.”) and/or prior knowledge (“Disney park”). However, some details (“It’s all thanks to the wind.Wind pushes up the mountain,making the air cooler”) lack explanation.

There is some general/vague language (“stuff”; “places”; “…supposed to be all sun and all things hot and more sun”) and/or repetitive (“amazingly great”; “equally great”), but the language is strong enough in other places (“Take me of the waiting list”; “sweet sunshine”) to earn an overall score of 3 for the task.

The style overall is strong (“Well see you later, I’m going to sunny sunny always sunny Florida!What?it isn’t always sunny?”). The ending in particular overdoes the appeal to the audience: “Now, lets hop on that plane headed for Colorado and get working on that igloo in the state that is amazingly great and better than Florida(of course not better than Maine)!It’s igloo time!!!!!!!!!!” However, the prompt indicates the audience is “the class,” so references such as “not better than Maine” are not illogical. Overall, the response reflects an understanding of how style can engage the audience, although in some cases, the catchy style obscures flaws in thorough development.

The response focuses on a clear opinion (“Florida is nice with its sun sometimes but I’d rather stick with Colorado.With its dramatic weather changes give you a bit of everything”), and that focus is maintained throughout the response.

There are some traditional transitions (“Another reason why”; “Now”), but most connections are made through sentence structure (“You might not approve of my choice but some…”) and rhetorical devices (“think about it”; “Why thunderstorms?!”). Still, some connections could be clearer (“Why thunderstorms?! I don’t mind them but i wish a lot could say to them; please stay out of my summer! The rain there is crazy. 9.64 Inches of rainfall!”).

The introduction presents the opinion but also includes some specific information that wouldn’t necessarily or typically be included in an introduction (specific information about wind in Colorado). That information is used to explain the overall reason for the opinion: the “…dramatic weather changes give you a bit of everything.” The conclusion reads like a travel brochure and is somewhat repetitive. Overall, the introduction and conclusion are adequate.

The progression of ideas is atypical. The comparison between Colorado and Florida, and the presentation of evidence to recognize the benefits of one (sunny Florida) while supporting the superiority of the other (Colorado), is well-maintained throughout. Yet there are some details that seem unconnected as integrated. For example, although the detail “It’s all thanks to the wind.Wind pushes up the mountain,making the air cooler” may have been provided for context, it somewhat disrupts the flow.

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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: 5356

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