Grade 7

Narrative

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Mount Everest

Conventions

Development/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are structural flaws in each of the sentences in this response with the possible exception of sentence 1, which borders on being a run-on, and sentence 2. Sentence 3 is a run-on (“as we vere climbing we saw a lot of intresting things we thought it was just snow and other disgusting things up there but ere were shining rocks and we meet other peoples dogs while we were up there.”). Sentence 4 has a comma splice and eventually becomes a run-on (“a few hours or minutes later we re staring to get highier and highier and we as we get higher we saw a wonderful wew, when we were going we saw alot of animlals wondering everywhere and we didnt know they were owned if they live up there or not se just peted them and said hi and let them wonder every where.”). The final sentence is also a run-on.
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The response fails to use capital letters for the beginnings of sentences, the pronoun “I,” and for proper names (“mount everest”). Capitalization is entirely absent in this response.
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Commas are missing before coordinating conjunctions (sentence 1: “one day i had a choice to climb mount everest[,] se me and my family…” sentence 2: “…we thought it was just snow and other disgusting things up there[,] but [th]ere were shining rocks[,] and we meet other peoples dogs…”). They are also missing after introductory elements (“once we got every thing[,] we headed up there…” “as we vere climbing[,] we saw a lot of intresting things…”). Apostrophes are missing to show possession (“other peoples dogs”) and to signal a contraction (“we didnt know they were owned…”).
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In the first sentence, “me and my family” should read “my family and I.” In addition, there are instances of shifts in tense (“but [th]ere were shining rocs and we meet other peoples dogs while we were up there…” and “we as we get higher we saw…”).
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There are numerous spelling errors of grade-level words (e.g., “everthing,” “statred,” “vere,” “animlals,” etc.). The response fails to observe spelling rules when making verbs past tense or adding an –ing ending (“tryed,” “geting,” “siting”). At times, errors in spelling tend to obscure the meaning of the text.

There are very general references to a setting (“mount everest” and a “wonderfil big wew”), characters (“me and my family” and “mom”), and some vague events (“intresting things” and “alot of animlals”), but there is no real plot.

Furthermore, connections to the source materials are so weak that it’s not clear the writer read the materials beyond getting a sense of the subject (climbing Mt. Everest). For example, references to “shining rocks” and petting animals are unexplained, do not connect to information from the source materials, and cause confusion. Narrative techniques are not evident.

The vague and repetitive language (e.g., “we re starting to get highier and higher,” “wondering everywhere”) and lack of appropriate narrative style further validates a low score point 1.

This response demonstrates minimal organization relevant to writing a narrative. There is a beginning, middle, and end, but the sequence of events is weak because it vaguely centers around climbing but is not specific to climbing Mount Everest.

The only indication that the narrator is climbing Mount Everest is in the opening line (“one day i had a choice to climb mount Everest.”) The writer fails to establish a setting or any characters.

The transitions, such as “once we got every thing” and “as we vere climbing,” are appropriate for a narrative but do not help the weak plot.

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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 7: Narrative – Mount Everest - ID: 925

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