Grade 7

Narrative

Writing Extended Response

Compose Full Texts

Mount Everest

Conventions

Development/Elaboration

Organization/Purpose

Sentences are generally constructed correctly, although a few would benefit from restructuring (e.g., “Anthony, and Ingo, my friends had stamina, and would also climb with me.”).
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Other than &#8220;mount&#8221; being lowercase in paragraph 1, capitalization is completed correctly in this response.

The response contains minor errors in the use of commas: there is an unnecessary comma in paragraph 3 (“First we found a ledge, and hooked the rope around it.”), a comma is misplaced in paragraph 4 (“A little over a week, after that we finally reached [the] summit.”), and there is an unnecessary comma later in paragraph 4 (“I took out the camera, and took a picture of the three of us…”).

The response is generally grammatically correct, although there are a few instances where extra words or typos give the appearance of errors (e.g., “My friends were so exhausted they the fell down right when they reached to summit.”). In the third sentence of paragraph 4, “This pane process of climb, stop, rest” likely is meant to say “This painful process of climb, stop, rest….”
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Several typos result in spelling errors: “te” instead of “to,” “thee” instead of “there,” “and” instead of “an,” “shill” instead of “still,” “fiends” instead of “friends,” “i” instead of “is.”

This response provides adequate elaboration using details and description that are appropriate to a narrative writing task. The writer uses a variety of narrative techniques to adequately develop the events in the narrative.

Throughout the narrative, the writer uses information from the sources, such as what the climbers carried with them, to add details and description in the story (e.g., “We started out by taking out what we brought: harnesses, jumars, carabiners, ice axes, headlamps to see in the dark, crampons to make it easier to walk on snow, and altimeter, lots and lots of food and water, a camera to remember the moment, and a rappel device for climbing back down.”). However, this example also shows how details are sometimes listed and do not become an integral part of the narrative.

Other than technical vocabulary from the sources, the vocabulary choices are adequate if somewhat general and occasionally repetitive (&#8220;We have heard stories …and we heard that it was very challenging and took a lot of stamina; and [we] got on te the ledge, we got the rope and threw it up to another ledge. It felt like a miracle that thee were ledges&#8221;).

There is, however, some evidence of an emerging style (e.g., &#8220;This [process] of climb, stop, rest, wake-up, climb, step, rest, wake-up continued…; Sadly, our joy was limited&#8221;).

The narrative includes an adequate plot, with the challenge of climbing Mount Everest providing a general conflict.

The characters are introduced at the end of the first paragraph, and the setting and point of view are also established. The first-person point of view is maintained throughout.

The narrative has an adequate beginning despite some shortcomings (e.g., the clever detail, &#8220;[We] trained Inigo to [not] be afraid of heights comes before the characters are actually introduced, which causes some brief confusion&#8221;). The closing seems abrupt (&#8220;down…was easy&#8221;) and contrived (&#8220;That was the end of our exciting, and tiring journey&#8221;).

The sequence of events is obvious but sustained with events, leading to the summit and back, progressing logically.

A variety of transitions—traditional phrases (&#8220;First,&#8221; &#8220;Then,&#8221; &#8220;When&#8221;) as well as some less typical devices (“It was 6:00 in the morning”; “You Guys ready?”)—combine to show the progression of ideas.

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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: 958

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