Grade 4

Opinion

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Thunderstorms

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are no errors with sentence formation.

There are no grade-specific errors with punctuation.

There are no errors with capital letters.

There are no grade-specific errors with grammar usage.

There is a single misspelled word (“lightnig”).

The use of source evidence is inconsistent because while the response integrates specific details about Florida in particular, too much of that evidence is copied verbatim. However, there are some details from charts (e.g., the information about temperatures in paragraph 2) that are well-selected and integrated from the chart in source 1.

Although there are clear references to all three sources, none are attributed. This is especially problematic in places where the information is directly copied but not cited in any way; in fact, the body paragraphs contain mostly information that is copied word-for-word.

Some elaboration utilizes prior knowledge (Disney, Bucsh Gardens). There is also some limited development by connecting to personal opinion (e.g., paragraph 3 is based on the opinion that “I personally love thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are exciting to watch and listen to”). Overall, however, the elaboration of original student writing (not copied material) is limited to obvious generalities such as “That is still really warm” and/or unsupported inferences such as “most people love warm and sunny weather.”

The amount of writing that is original is insufficient to demonstrate adequate language and vocabulary use except for a few words (“adore”; “boring”).

The style can only be assessed in the introduction and conclusion, as they are the only solid examples of original student writing; hence, there is only limited evidence of appropriate style.

Nearly half of the response is copied verbatim from the source materials, with no attempt to quote, develop, or summarize the information; therefore, only what is original can be scored. In the original writing, the focus on preferring to live in Florida is somewhat maintained throughout. The continued references to &#8220;visiting&#8221; (the prompt asks where respondents want to live) is a slight drift. Furthermore, the response concludes by explaining how Florida weather is not boring and not the same every day. Yet the paragraph describing the negative aspects of Colorado, which again is largely copied, mostly focuses on its unpredictable weather.

Being mindful to disregard transitions that are directly copied from the source materials, there are a few transitions — such as individual paragraphs concluding with somewhat self-evident statements (“That is how Florida&#8217;s storms form” and “Most people do not like hail or snow”) — that provide some limited cohesion.

The introduction provides some context for the chosen opinion (“I would rather go to Florida”) but becomes repetitive (&#8220;I really like thunderstorms&#8221;; &#8220;It also has rainy days and thunderstorms. I adore&#8230;storms&#8221;). The conclusion is somewhat weak because it relies on the conclusion that Florida is better because “you won’t have the same weather everyday….that would be boring…” when the sources actually provide information that indicates that Colorado has more variability in weather than stated.

The response is clearly organized, promoting Florida in the first three body paragraphs and then explaining the negative attributes of Colorado in the fourth body paragraph. There are no major drifts, although the large amount of copied material makes it difficult to assume more than limited control with structuring 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: 5431

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