Grade 4

Narrative

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Ant Colony

Conventions

Development/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

While most sentences in the response are grammatically correct, there is one run-on sentence (“I went over there I got a cup and I dumped it on the ant hill,”) and several comma splices (“Than a lot of ants were steping on me with there six tiny legs, they were touching me with there antennae”; “But then she said ‘stop let her go home,I want tt see if we let her go.’”).

Capitalization is generally correct except the response does not use capital letters for dialogue that begins in the middle of the sentence (“I said ‘where am I…’”; “She said ‘why did you flood my home.’”; “But then she said ‘stop let her go home&#8230;’”).
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There are missing commas in phrases that introduce dialogue (see the three examples listed under capitalization). The response does not use question marks at the end of interrogative sentences (“where am I, why am I here&#8221;; “why did you flood my home.”). As the speaker changes in dialogue, the response should include paragraph breaks.
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The response also consistently uses the incorrect form of the word “their” (“there hill,” “there six tiny legs,” “there antennae”) as well as substituting the word “Than” for “Then.” In the third sentence, “a ant hill” should be “an anthill.” There is an issue with verb tense in the sentence “Then the queen told the soldiers took me away.”
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Spelling of grade-level words is generally correct although the response has errors in adding the –ing suffix to words that require doubling the consonant (“siting,” “steping”). Two possible typos also count as spelling errors (“sarted” for “started” and “tt” for “to”).

The events in this narrative are only partially developed (e.g., “I came back outside and I looked around and found a ant hill.”).

The response provides only a couple of vague connections to the sources in mentioning the queen and ant hill.

The complication of the flooded colony, which almost causes the narrator’s demise, shows a nice attempt at elaboration although it isn’t adequately explained. Although not well-implemented, the use of dialogue shows an attempt at elaboration.

Even though the narrative lacks any figurative language or sensory details, there is some concrete language in the story (e.g., “Than a lot of  ants were  steping on me with there six tiny legs, they were touching me with there antennae.”) used to add description.

The writer attempts to establish narrative elements: setting (“One day I was siting on my grass.”), character development (very limited, but attempted), and a conflict (“why did you flood my home,”) implying that the queen is angry and could have done the narrator harm).  Overall, the response is too brief and therefore the plot is too superficial to be adequate.

The sequence of events follows a logical order using basic transitions (e.g. “Then,” “But then,” and “Than” for “Then”).

The ending of the story is weak but follows logically from the events in the story.

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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 4: Narrative – Ant Colony - ID: 701

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