Grade 4

Opinion

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Thunderstorms

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There is a single run-on (“I wouldn’t want to live in Colorado because Colorado has to many kinds of weather Source #2 is where I found this information”), but otherwise, the sentence structures are repetitive but not incorrectly formed.

There are commas missing to separate compound independent clauses (“…I’ve been to Florida before and I think I would like Florida more than Colorado…” and “But one thing I do like about Florida is that you can walk in the rain even if its summer time and when you do walk in the rain the rain water is warm”).

There is an error with a missing capital letter at the beginning of a sentence (“but I would…”) and unnecessary capitals (“Winter”; “Summer”).

There is a single grade-level error with the frequently confused words &#8220;to&#8221; and &#8220;too&#8221;.

There are a couple of misspelled words (&#8220;rain water&#8221; should be &#8220;rainwater&#8221; and &#8220;summer time&#8221; should be &#8220;summertime&#8221;).

There is minimal information from the provided sources. Instead, most ideas included are personal opinions (e.g., liking warm rain, disliking crowds, and staying indoors) rather than evidence from the source materials. The information provided is not integrated. It is randomly listed.

There is a single reference to a source (cited by number) referring to Colorado’s unpredictable weather.

Many random details are unexplained (“I would also like to live in Florida because I would get to stay inside a lot”; “I would also like the Summer air because it is very humid”). These ideas are confusing and fail to support the opinion.

The vocabulary is weak and repetitive but not inappropriate.

Although not inappropriate, there is no evidence of style to engage the audience in this brief response.

The focus on preferring to live in Florida is somewhat maintained, but there is some irrelevant and/or not text-based information (“it is so hot during the summer;” “especially&#8230;in the Winter”) that interferes with the stated opinion, especially given the brevity of the response.

There are a few transitions (“also”; “The reason why…is because…”; &#8220;One thing I don’t like&#8221;; &#8220;But one thing I do like…”), but they minimally connect extraneous reasons.

The introduction does include a choice, but it is rambling and includes a vague reason (“I like the warm rain water”) which is awkward. The ending is abrupt with no conclusion attempted.

The structure is weak overall with minimal cohesion. Some ideas are random and largely irrelevant (&#8220;I wouldn’t live in Orlando…” and “I would probably get to go to Universal Studios”). And some ideas fail to support the opinion (“it is so hot during the summer”).

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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: 5443

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