Grade 4

Opinion

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Thunderstorms

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There is a single sentence fragment (“The Rockies, or Florida”). Some other sentences are long and awkward (e.g., the third sentence in paragraph 2), but they represent stylistic problems and not formation errors.

There are no grade-specific punctuation errors, although the overuse of the exclamation point is distracting.

There are no errors with capital letters.

There are no grade-specific errors with grammar usage.

There is one spelling error (&#8220;prefered&#8221;).

The response makes little use of the available evidence. References to sources are vague (“snow, hail, sleet, or some other random form of condensation”; “foot of snow”) or nonexistent. Specifically, the sources do not address income or crops; therefore, the supporting paragraph about family’s losing income when hail destroys crop is only tangentially related to the sources.

The references to sources are vague, and there is no effort to attribute the information.

The response includes only vague references to source information (“snow is on the ground&#8221;; &#8220;If you live in the Rockies, you might as well drive an ATV for road trips”), so the essay is developed with marginally relevant inferences that are only loosely text-based. As another example, the entire fourth paragraph elaborates on a single detail about Colorado getting hail (which Florida also gets).

There is some effective language (“traveling dilemma”; “random form of condensation”), and overall, the word choices are adequate

The style is inconsistent. There is some evidence of a style that appeals to readers (“I mean, think about it.”; “Poor people”; “I go to bed on a happy note thinking that…”). However, the first and last paragraphs are distracting and divert attention from the opinion.

The opinion is clear (“I’ve chosen Florida”), and the body of the essay sustains a focus on that choice. The introduction and the conclusion are more distracting than

Connections between “reasons” are formulaic but clear (“My first/second/third and final”). Other transitions adequately connect ideas, although each paragraph addresses only a single idea (soccer game, travel, crops) so the essay is short enough to not require too many connections.

“Hi my name is__ and I’m here to…” and “Enjoy my essay!!!!” are not appropriate for an essay introduction. In addition, the conclusion is ineffective, and the information about essays reflecting other opinions is largely irrelevant but likely reflects an inadequate understanding of the essay form.

The progression of ideas in the body of the essay is predictable but clear. There are no drifts, although the information about “family income” is not directly text-based, and the conclusion, in particular, diverts attention from the focus.

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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: 5372

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