Grade 7

Narrative

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Mount Everest

Conventions

Development/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

There is a pattern of errors in sentence structure including fragments (e.g., the second and last two sentences in the first paragraph), run-ons (e.g., the first sentence in the third paragraph), and the dialogue is not structured or punctuated correctly. Arguably, the writer may have inserted the fragments as a stylistic choice, but because the response does not show adequate control of other sentence structures, it’s difficult to dismiss them as stylistic.
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There are punctuation errors like the comma splice in the first paragraph (“The pain was excruciating from the cold wind, it was cold, snowy, and icy.”). There are missing end marks for sentences (“on the &#8216;satt&#8217; phone She was so happy…”). There is a missing apostrophe (“families” instead of “family’s”).

There are some errors in grammar usage (e.g., the last sentence in the second paragraph has a subject/verb agreement error that should read “There were my dad, my mom, and I,” not “There was my dad, my mom, and I”). There are errors with frequently confused words (e.g., “your” for “you’re”).
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There are a few capitalization and spelling errors (“riggid,” “sattleite,” “oxegyn,” “thatn,” “throught”).

There are missing capital letters, both at the beginning of sentences and with the personal pronoun “I.”

This response provides brief elaboration using some description and dialogue (e.g., “‘Sure’,he said,‘only if your up to the hard preparation.’”). There is a partial description of the character’s past, in which the narrator lists other mountains climbed, but little of this information is elaborated and does nothing to characterize the story’s narrator.

The writer integrates some information from the sources (e.g., “burning six thousand calories a day”).

There are a few examples of attempted elaboration in which the writer uses descriptive language (“it was cold, snowy, and icy…Mount Fujiyama it was steep and riggid”), but the response is lacking in sensory details or figurative language. Overall, the language is general and the style is appropriate for the task.

This response has a structure that includes a beginning, middle, and end. Overall, the sequence of events follows a logical order with references to Mt. Fujiyama and Mt. Ash, but these trips are only weakly related to the story of climbing Mount Everest, which should be the focus of the narrative. There is an ending to the narrative that the writer attempts to tie back into the introduction (“a legacy thatn would be passed on throught my families history.”).

The writer attempts to create a setting in the opening paragraph (“The pain was excruciating from the cold wind, it was cold, snowy, and icy.”), but other attempts to describe the setting are repetitious (“It was also steep and riggid, it was cold but we made it there.”). There is no attempt at establishing a character or narrator.

The response uses basic transitions (“beginning,” “My second,” and “Last mountain”) to progress from one event 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 7: Narrative – Mount Everest - ID: 943

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