Grade 5

Narrative

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Whales

Conventions

Development/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are run-on sentences (e.g., “We went on a boat cruise, that is when we saw a big whale breaching”), although technically, “&#8217;I can&#8217;t wait , I love vacations,&#8217;” which is in dialogue, might be purposeful. There is a sentence fragment (e.g., “Which I was so glad that I brought my camera on the boat”).

There are errors punctuating dialogue throughout, such as missing and/or incorrect marks used between dialogue and speaker: “’That was big’ said my Mom” and “&#8217;&#8230;I love vacations.’ I say out loud.” In the sentence “After, it landed and went &#8216;splash&#8217;, that is when the boat started to rock,” either the comma following “After” is unnecessary or the sentence should be two separate sentences (“…&#8217;splash&#8217;. That is when…”). “Wow” should have an exclamation point.

&#8220;Ocean,” “Sweetheart,” “Mom,” and “Dad” need no capital letters. There are also many errors with capital letters in dialogue.

There are some minor shifts in verb tense. The response is predominantly in present tense, with occasional shifts to past tense (e.g., &#8220;said&#8221;; &#8220;thought&#8221;), although the shift to past tense at the end, to reflect on the experience, is appropriate. There are also other verb tense errors (“we seen…”). Errors with frequently confused words such as further/farther and exited/excited are not grade-4 relevant errors.

There are no spelling errors, although “out” should be “our.”

Although the development of story details is adequate overall, some information is not developed enough to be relevant. For example, “We drove a little further out, then headed back to the hotel,” and the repeated references to this being the narrator’s eleventh vacation serve no narrative purpose.

Other than information about breaching, there is little source material integrated.

There is some dialogue, but description is more limited in effectiveness.

The language is somewhat inconsistent: there are some effective words/phrases such as “said my Dad smartly” and “over joyed,” but also some weaker words/phrases such as “it landed and went ‘splash’” and “We were so shocked.”

The style is appropriate if not distinctive, except for the building of suspense in the opening.

The plot is adequate, loosely centered around an annual vacation, this time a “trip near the Ocean.” Although the opening creates a sense of anticipation, the actual “event” — a single, brief whale breach, occurring with little set up — is somewhat anticlimactic.

The narrator and her family are established (in fact, a bit too much time is spent emphasizing that this is the narrator’s eleventh vacation), but the setting is somewhat vague (“Ocean” and “boat cruise”).

Transitions are somewhat repetitive but adequate to move the reader through the story (e.g., “Then,” “After,” and “When”).

The story progresses logically, but the pacing is somewhat uneven: the actual climactic event (whale breaching) occurs rather rapidly, while the buildup reflection on the number of vacations and the pictures/photo album references are overemphasized.

The beginning creates a sense of anticipation (e.g., &#8220;&#8230;didn&#8217;t know&#8230;&#8221;; &#8220;&#8230;just glad I brought my camera&#8221;), and the ending offers some reflection.

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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.

Evidence/Elaboration

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 5: Narrative – Whales - ID: 5527

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