Grade 4

Narrative

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Ant Colony

Conventions

Development/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

Sentence structure is generally correct with the exception of run-on sentences that start and end the final paragraph of the essay. In paragraph 2, the second instance of the word “I” should be removed for the sentence to read correctly (“I was still on the ant and, to be honest, I was getting a little board…”). In that same paragraph, the sentence “I started run again but this time in a room filled with fungest,” is either missing the word “to” (“I started to run again…”) or uses the wrong form of the word “run” (“I started running again…”).
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There are no capitalization errors.

There are commas missing from introductory elements (“When I looked up,”; “When the sound go closer,”; “When the queen ant layed eggs”), but this is a higher grade skill, so these do not count as errors for this grade four response. However, there should be commas before coordinating conjunctions in compound sentences (e.g., “…I was getting a little board[,] so I jumped off the back of my new friend…”; “Well I found another room[,] but this one has a gigantic ant in it!”; “I started to run[,] but I ran into a soldier ant[,] but the good thing is he brought me out of the colony.”).
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There is a tense shift in the sentence that begins paragraph 3 (“After a while I left and started to run until I either find a way out or until I find another room…”), as well as in the second sentence of that same paragraph (“Well I found another room but this one has a gigantic ant in it!&#8221;). Another tense shift occurs in the final paragraph (“Now I have to figure out the way out.”).
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There are several misspellings of grade four-level words including “wounder,” “relised,” secound,” “scence,” and “beggining.”

The writer develops the narrator well by attributing emotions to the character (the narrator admits to being “board” and “panict”).

The writer effectively utilizes information from the sources (e.g., “I found another room but this one has a gigantic ant in it! Lukily it was harmless and this one was laying eggs.”) to advance the story and make the narrative more interesting, even though the description of the fungus is somewhat misinterpreted.

There is some figurative language (e.g., the simile “the grass was like bambo sticks in rows of millions”).

Additionally, the response successfully establishes a conversational style that works to engage the reader (e.g., “to be honest,” “not the ones you boil or scramble [but] the ones that hatch…”).

The beginning is somewhat ineffective as the reader has no idea what happened to cause the narrator to shrink while he/she slept. The ending is brief but appropriate.

However, the writer does attempt to establish a setting (“the tree was gigantic and the grass was like bambo sticks in rows of millions.”). The response adequately establishes the narrator’s character (inquisitive—follows the ant, but then gets bored and wanders off, but then panics, etc.), although the conflict is vague.

There is an identifiable and consistent plot with a sequence of events that follows a logical order.

The writer effectively uses narrative transitions (e.g., “When I looked up,” “After a while,” “Then I relised,” “Lukily”) to connect ideas in the story and to move from one element of the plot to the next.

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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: 704

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