Grade 7

Narrative

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Mount Everest

Conventions

Development/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There are numerous instances of awkward sentence constructions that read like run-ons (e.g., “so that what i been doing for the past 3 years i have been training to climb mount everest,” “the next morning we we start to climb but found out there wasent much air up were we were so we had to stop and get uses to the air up there.”).

There are errors in grammar usage (e.g., the switch from “i” to “we” in the second paragraph in which the writer makes no mention of there being any characters other than the narrator). There are errors with verbs (e.g., “i got,” “i been doing”). Additionally, the writer makes the mistake of using “were” for “where” (“up were we were”) and “of” for “have” (“we could of sliped”).

There are numerous spelling errors (“wonted,” “trianing,” “eequipment,” “takkes,” “sliped,” “rockes,” “clime,” “mountin,” “moutin,” “carefull,” “beacuse,” “wasent,” “maskes”).
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The writer fails to capitalize the personal pronoun “I” and fails to use capitals at the beginnings of sentences. Mount Everest should be consistently capitalized as a proper name.
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There are missing commas in several sentences (e.g., “the next morning i got up[,] packed my things[,] and started to climb.”).

The writer confuses the reader by switching personal pronouns from “i” to “we” indicating that there is more than one character; however, no character names are mentioned.

There is a vague reference to the source material in the first paragraph in which the writer mentions having trained for 3 years (“it takes years of trianing and some necessary climbing eequipment. so that what i been doing for the past 3 years i have been training to climb mount Everest.”).

This response provides minimal elaboration with no discernable use of narrative techniques and few details. The writer makes no use of sensory or figurative language although the style is appropriate to the task.

The narrative has an extremely minimal and only somewhat effective beginning. There is a weak ending to the story (“that is my story on how i was able to climb mount Everest.”).

The writer attempts to set up the story but fails to establish a setting; however, the point of view is consistent throughout.

There is no real plot, although there is a sequence of events.

There are some decent transitions (“after a while,” “the next morning,” “from there on”).

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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: 933

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