Grade 3

Narrative

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Astronauts

Conventions

Development/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are errors with simple verb tenses that cause mild confusion (“I am just about to go…When I got inside” ; “…vehicle that was as big…and has 12 wheels”). Constructions such as “I been practicing” and “I also been scuba diving” also cause confusion; errors with perfect tense is grade 5, but these sentences could have been written as simple past tense and been clearer (“I practiced…”; “I went …”). There are errors with simple subject/verb agreement (e.g., “next couple people was;” “There was big rubber bands that were attached…”). Errors with frequently confused words (e.g., &#8220;are&#8221; for &#8220;our&#8221;; &#8220;your&#8221; for &#8220;you’re&#8221;; &#8220;of&#8221; for &#8220;off&#8221;; &#8220;to&#8221; for &#8220;too&#8221;) are not relevant for grade 3.
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There are no grade-appropriate problems with sentences, although arguably sentences such as “We all ran not so really ran to are family” cause mild confusion.
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There are occasional problems with missing capitals for dialogue (e.g., “Annabeth said ‘ we&#8217;re done.’”), and both “earth” and “m&amp;m” should be capitalized.
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Overall, the dialogue is adequately punctuated although there are fundamental errors with punctuating dialogue (“She said ‘ My job…’”; “’I’m a pilot.’ Tyson said”). Other punctuation errors (e.g., missing or inappropriately-placed commas) do not reflect grade 3 requirements.
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There are misspelled words: straped, kno, anserad, ting, since (for science), criad, cach, spasip, aventures (some words, such as doging for dodging, are above grade level).

The use of dialogue succeeds in capturing the experience and showing the characters.

Many other descriptive details are adequately developed and attempt to show the events. As examples, the M&amp;M anecdote provides an effective way to integrate and develop information from the sources (with no gravity, the candy floats about). The moon-bouncing adventure of Meg nearly drifting off into space is also adequately shown to readers. The repairs to the space ship as well as the three subsequent years in space are not elaborated; however, these undeveloped details do not cause any confusion.

Other source-based details are neither well-integrated nor developed (scuba diving, the “vehicle” described by the narrator as she looked out the window).

There are attempts at some adventure-appropriate story style (e.g., “3&#8230;2&#8230;1&#8230;BLASTOFF”; “CLUNK!!!!!!!!”; “cach the rope cach the rope!”).

The language and vocabulary are mostly general (&#8220;stuff&#8221;).

The story beginning has some awkward elements (e.g., “Hello, I am …”; and the distracting definition of “scuba”), but it does introduce a narrator and a narrative situation (blast off into space).

The progression of ideas is also somewhat confusing (first characters are introduced, then there is a meal of M&amp;Ms, followed by a listing of characters’ jobs).

There are several conflicts (e.g., dents from the asteroid belt) with the main conflict occurring when “Meg” fails to tether herself and nearly floats off into space.

The transitions are generally adequate (then, now, when, so) with dialogue also used to show the sequence of events.

The story beginning has some awkward elements (e.g., “Hello, I am …”; and the distracting definition of “scuba”), but it does introduce a narrator and a narrative situation (blast off into space). The ending is abrupt (“We were told we would land in space 3 years later. 3 years later we landed on earth. We had lots of different aventures”) with the ending sentences offering closure that is a bit clumsy (they returned home having difficulties walking but very quickly recovering enough to “run to their families” and—after six years in space—saying “see you later”).

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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 3: Narrative – Astronauts - ID: 629

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