Grade 7

Narrative

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Mount Everest

Conventions

Development/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

Sentence structures are generally correct and effective.

There are no capitalization errors.

Most of the punctuation errors are missing hyphens: “snow-covered rocks,” “sixty-degree slope,” “thirty-pound backpack,” and “three-quarters of the way.” There is a missing apostrophe to indicate possession in the first sentence: “The wind[’]s volume…” and again later in the phrase “other people[’]s ice axes.” Punctuation should also be present around the two instances of dialogue in the final paragraph.
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There are tense shifts in paragraphs 2 and 4. In paragraph 2, there is a shift to present tense with the sentence that begins “Our crew has more gear….” and a shift back to past tense with the sentence that begins “Before we even began the hike…” In paragraph 4, the response again shifts to present tense with the sentence that begins “He tells me the next stopping point” with a shift back to past tense near the end of that paragraph with the sentence “It was so lonely and cold up there.” The wrong form of the word “too” is used in the phrase “I realised that if I yelled to much.…” Near the end of the story, the word “quick” should likely be “quickly,” although the meaning of the full sentence is not entirely clear.

There are just a few misspelled grade-level words: “eachother” should be two words; “realised,” “stoping,” “mountian,” and “disapeared.”

The response uses many relevant text details to enhance the narrative.

For example, the setting is well described in the first paragraph. Similarly, the writer uses details such as what the climbers carried with them, even going as far as to define lesser known words for the reader (&#8220;…he pulled on his hiking rope with the jumar holding his position on the side of the mountain. His crampons, steel studs attached to warm boots that are used to walk on ice, grated on a piece of rock due to how difficult his facemask and goggles made it for him to see&#8221;). Technical details are well integrated in paragraph #4 to increase the tension in the story. Dialogue is not used (except briefly at the end), and there are a few places where further explanation would clarify some events (e.g., &#8220;&#8230;crampons grating on rocks because goggles made it difficult to see&#8221;), but overall the narrative is well developed.

The writer effectively utilizes vocabulary (&#8220;monotonous,&#8221; &#8220;howl&#8221;) and figurative language (&#8220;The winds volume reached a howl on the snow covered rocks surrounding us. Snow swirled in mini tornadoes and lodged itself in any open spots in our clothing”) to make the story more exciting. The style is effective and appropriate to the task.

This response is an interesting story with an engaging beginning. The ending of the narrative however, lacks any true falling action, leaving the reader feeling a little less than satisfied that the narrative has ended.

The writer establishes a setting using descriptive language (“The winds volume reached a howl on the snow covered rocks surrounding us. Snow swirled in mini tornadoes and lodged itself in any open spots in our clothing.”). Additionally, the writer establishes a consistent first-person point of view from the perspective of the main character.

The sequence of events follows a logical order building suspense as the story progresses to the rather unexpected climax. The plot helps to create a sense of cohesion with the writer establishing a conflict and providing a resolution to the conflict.

There are a variety of transitions used by the writer (“At this point,” “As I climbed,” “Suddenly”) to connect ideas and help the progression of the 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: 949

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