Grade 4

Opinion

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Thunderstorms

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are no sentence structure errors. Although there is little sentence variety, the choppiness is stylistic and does not reflect any lack of control of sentence conventions.

There are a few errors with punctuation, indicating partial control (e.g. the unnecessary comma in &#8220;I would like to live in Colorado because, of all the land&#8221;).

There are no errors with capital letters

There are some grammar usage errors like transposed words in &#8220;One reason why I like would to live in Colorado&#8221; and the missing article &#8220;a&#8221; in &#8220;&#8230;sounds fun to run into bush&#8221;.

The evidence is mostly general, with references to “weather,” “snow,” and “sledding” lacking sufficient evidence to offer adequate support.

Although there are some general references to source materials, these references are vague and unattributed.

The response offers personal preferences that are mostly repeated rather than developed, providing weak elaboration overall (“…because of the weather&#8221;; &#8220;I love playing in the snow.I could play in the snow all day long.&#8221;, &#8220;Even though I love playing in the snow it would be even cooler if I was playing in the snow and then it started snowing”).

The vocabulary is generally appropriate but not strong: “pretty,” “cooler,” and “super fun.”

The style is not inappropriate but does little to engage the audience. It is somewhat wordy (“One reason why I like would to live in Colorado is because…”) and repetitive (“I love&#8221;; &#8220;I love&#8221;; &#8220;I would love”), and the short, choppy sentence structure contributes to the list-like feel of the response.

There is a stated, if initially weak, opinion (“probably pick Colorado”), but it is clarified at the end, and the focus is generally sustained throughout. However, some support for the opinion is so general that it could apply to Florida as well as Colorado (e.g. “jet skiing”; “land.it’s so pretty to look at”).

Overall, the transitions are adequate. Words and phrases such as “also,” “Even though,” “Another reason,” and “Those are some reasons why” make adequate connections.

The first and last sentences state and restate the opinion, but they do not provide much context or introductory/concluding information.

The supporting reasons progress list-like from “weather” to “playing in the snow,” followed by “jet skiing and sledding” and “beautiful land.”

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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: 5473

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