Grade 6

Explanatory

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

World's Fair

Conventions

Evidence/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are some sentence errors, including run-on sentences (e.g., paragraph 4 has two comma-splices: “Imagine what inventions were like then compared to now, that is because…” and “That right there is an example of innovation, they took….”). Note that some seeming sentence errors are really more style problems (“People could see these ideas and create and innovate the world with so many inventions made at one time”) or a dropped word (“The impact that the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 [had] was incredible”), etc.
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Overall, grammar usage is adequate, with an error with a frequently confused word “it’s” instead of “its” in paragraph 4.
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There is a pattern of errors with missing commas in compound constructions (e.g., “At that time electricity was fairly new and people wanted to know more so this fair gave them what they wanted” and “Electricity was a huge breakthrough and to think that this fair helped to spread the idea of it is incredible” and others).
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There are no errors with spelling or capitalization.

There is evidence from source materials with at least some of the information attributed to sources.

Most of the elaboration is via interpretation (e.g., “this means that the fair was a pretty big deal if, after so long, these items are still in use”). The elaboration as well as the language use is sometimes general (“pretty big deal”) and repetitive (“so many creative breakthroughs” and “still in use” from paragraph 2; “a huge breakthrough” and “things that we use every day” in paragraph 3). Despite these minor flaws, overall the elaboration is adequate.

The language use, as described for elaboration, is sometimes general or repetitive, although words such as “breakthrough” show an effort to avoid parroting the source materials (e.g., “breakthrough” is similar but not the same as “milestone,” the term used in the sources). The style is appropriate and consistent if not distinctive.

The controlling idea in the introduction of the essay is somewhat self-evident (the fair “was incredible”… “a big deal”); however, the clear direction of the essay goes beyond just listing the fair highlights. For example, “whole new way of looking at the world” and “allowed a structure for innovators to build on” do succeed in verifying that the fair was “a big deal.” The conclusion basically repeats, using different words, the introduction; however, the integration of the quote at the end provides nice closure.

Some transitions are obvious, even distractingly obvious (“First,” “Next,” “Last”), and others are more subtle (“In source X,” “At that time”).

The progression of ideas, signaled in the introduction, is maintained with each body paragraph moving from specific examples of innovation to the overall significance.

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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 6: Explanatory – World's Fair - ID: 900

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