Grade 4

Opinion

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Thunderstorms

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are no errors with sentence formation.

There is a single comma missing to separate compound independent clauses (“&#8230;it is very hot and it is hard to predict the weather in the Colorado Rockies”), but otherwise, grade-specific punctuation is controlled.

There is one capitalization error with the proper noun &#8220;Rocky Mountains&#8221;.

There are no errors with grammar usage.

Some specific details seem to be randomly listed rather than integrated (e.g., paragraph two), and some other evidence is marginally relevant (e.g., “Florida would be a great vacation destination&#8230;” doesn’t really fit with the prompt). Given the brevity and general nature of the response, the use of evidence is limited overall.

There are mostly general references to source materials, but they are unattributed.

The elaboration of ideas is limited. Most of the details are closely summarized rather than developed (e.g., “…great vacation destination, but travelers should remember that there can be rain and thunderstorms” vs. “visitors should remember rain and thunderstorms could be part of their vacation”) or are developed with self-evident inferences (“Florida is known as sunshine state and thunderstorm capital because of all the thunderstorms and sunshine”). There is some development by personal commentary, such as “I love thunderstorms because they are interesting to examine and study.” But most of the elaboration is too weak for a higher score.

Although adequate overall, the vocabulary is somewhat repetitive (“to live in”) and sometimes vague (“The two states are very different but the same too”).

The style is not inappropriate, although the repetition of general ideas (e.g., “People who like warm weather and rain would like Florida to live in”) fails to engage the audience.

The opinion (“I would live in Florida”) is mostly maintained but weakened by seemingly random references to the good parts of living in Colorado (e.g., “300 days of sunshine”; “too”) and vague references such as “both places are great to live in.”

Some transitions connect details (“Since…”; “When”; On the other hand…”) although there are some random, listed details as well. Despite some inconsistencies, the transitions are more adequate than weak.

The first paragraph provides a clear opinion but also serves to provide the support for the opinion, providing specific information about thunderstorms, which would seem more appropriate for a body paragraph. The last paragraph is weak, introducing new ideas that don’t necessarily support the opinion and thereby weaken the conclusion (“Colorado is a very nice state to live in….Both places are great to live in…”).

The response is loosely organized by comparing the pros and cons of Florida and Colorado, but that apparent structure is inconsistent: Paragraph 1 functions as both an intro and as support for living in Florida. Paragraph 2 lists the negatives of listing in Colorado but also adds irrelevant, or at least unconnected, information about Florida’s sunny weather. The final paragraph offers random details about both states with vague conclusions about Florida being a “better place to live.”

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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: 5415

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