Writing Test Sample : Grade 8, Persuasive Writing

Excellent

• Takes a clear position and develops it consistently with well-chosen reasons and/or examples across the response.
• Is well organized with strong transitions.
• Sustains variety in sentence structure and exhibits good word choice.
• Errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation are few and do not interfere with understanding.

Skillful

• Takes a clear position and develops it with reasons and/or examples in parts of the response.
• Is clearly organized, but may lack some transitions and/or have occasional lapses in continuity.
• Exhibits some variety in sentence structure and some good word choices.
• Errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation do not interfere with understanding.

Sufficient

• Takes a clear position and supports it with some reasons and/or examples.
• Is organized with ideas that are generally related, but there are few or no transitions.
• Exhibits control over sentence boundaries and sentence structure, but sentences and word choice may be simple and unvaried.
• Errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation do not interfere with understanding.

Uneven

May be characterized by one or more of the following:
• Takes a position and offers support, but may be unclear, repetitive, list-like, or undeveloped.
• Is unevenly organized; the response may be disjointed.
• Exhibits uneven control over sentence boundaries and sentence structure; may have some inaccurate word choices.
• Errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation sometimes interfere with understanding.

Insufficient

May be characterized by one or more of the following:
• Takes a position, but may be very unclear, very undeveloped, or very repetitive.
• Is very disorganized; thoughts are tenuously connected OR the response is too brief to detect organization.
• Minimal control over sentence boundaries and sentence structure; word choice may often be inaccurate.
• Errors in grammar or usage (such as missing words or incorrect word use or word order), spelling, and punctuation interfere with understanding in much of the response.

Unsatisfactory

May be characterized by one or more of the following:
• Attempts to take a position (addresses topic) but is incoherent OR takes a position but provides no support; may only paraphrase the prompt.
• Has no apparent organization OR consists of a single statement.
• Minimal or no control over sentence boundaries and sentence structure; word choice may be inaccurate in much or all of the response.
• A multiplicity of errors in grammar or usage (such as missing words or incorrect word use or word order), spelling, and punctuation severely impedes understanding across the response.

Scorer Comments:

“Excellent” responses provide a suggestion for trying something new and support the suggestion with well-chosen details across the response. The response is very well-organized, and well-chosen descriptive details are used consistently to support the student’s views. This student’s essay exhibits sentence variety and precise word choice throughout.

Scorer Comments:

“Skillful” responses make a clear suggestion for trying something new and support it with examples. While this response is organized by the suggestion of trying a roller coaster and supports that suggestion with some nice descriptive details and some good word choice, it has some lapses in continuity caused by quick shifts in focus or lack of development in parts.

Scorer Comments:

“Sufficient” responses make a clear suggestion for trying something new and support it with some reasons. This response is a general discussion of the advantages of trying something new. While the writing is mostly clear and controlled, transitions to guide the reader are few.

Scorer Comments:

“Uneven” responses present some clear information, but that information may be repetitive and/or undeveloped. This response briefly and repetitively discusses learning how to swim. The missing and misused punctuation makes the response a bit hard to read.

Scorer Comments:

“Insufficient” responses present fragmented information and are very underdeveloped, as is this response which consists mostly of a run-on sentence.

Scorer Comments:

“Unsatisfactory” responses attempt to address the prompt, but provide little or no coherent information. This response consists almost entirely of a single complete statement and does not demonstrate any apparent organization.

Excellent

• Takes a clear position and develops it consistently with well-chosen reasons and/or examples across the response.
• Well organized with strong transitions.
• Sustains variety in sentence structure and exhibits good word choice.
• Errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation are few and do not interfere with understanding.

Skillful

• Takes a clear position and develops it with reasons and/or examples in parts of the response.
• Clearly organized, but may lack some transitions and/or have occasional lapses in continuity.
• Exhibits some variety in sentence structure and some good word choices.
• Errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation do not interfere with understanding.

Sufficient

• Takes a clear position and supports it with some reasons and/or examples.
• Organized with ideas that are generally related, but there are few or no transitions.
• Exhibits control over sentence boundaries and sentence structure, but sentences and word choice may be simple and unvaried.
• Errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation do not interfere with understanding.

Uneven

May be characterized by one or more of the following:

• Takes a position and offers support, but may be unclear, repetitive, list-like, or undeveloped.
• Unevenly organized; the response may be disjointed.
• Exhibits uneven control over sentence boundaries and sentence structure; may have some inaccurate word choices.
• Errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation sometimes interfere with understanding.

Insufficient

May be characterized by one or more of the following:

• Takes a position, but may be very unclear, very undeveloped, or very repetitive.
• Very disorganized; thoughts are tenuously connected OR the response is too brief to detect organization.
• Minimal control over sentence boundaries and sentence structure; word choice may often be inaccurate.
• Errors in grammar or usage (such as missing words or incorrect word use or word order), spelling, and punctuation interfere with understanding in much of the response.

Unsatisfactory

May be characterized by one or more of the following:

• Attempts to take a position (addresses topic) but is incoherent OR takes a position but provides no support; may only paraphrase the prompt.
• Has no apparent organization OR consists of a single statement.
• Minimal or no control over sentence boundaries and sentence structure; word choice may be inaccurate in much or all of the response.
• A multiplicity of errors in grammar or usage (such as missing words or incorrect word use or word order), spelling, and punctuation severely impedes understanding across the response.

Scorer Comments:

“Excellent” responses, apart from being consistently well developed and organized, sometimes used a variety of persuasive techniques to convince the reader. For example, the “Excellent” response shown below addresses potential counter-arguments. The response is notable for its focused, well-organized development of an argument about tired teachers.

Scorer Comments:

“Skillful” responses offered clear positions supported with reasons and examples in parts of the response. The following sample response does develop the arguments, and is reasonably organized; however, transitions between ideas and chunks of argument are not always present, and sentence structure and word choice are relatively unvaried. Note though, as with many upper-level responses, the rhetorical questions to the audience: “What happens when we get older?”

Scorer Comments:

“Sufficient” responses took clear positions and developed those positions with some support. Ideas were generally related with few transitions. In the response below, information from the article is used to develop some support for an argument. Ideas in the response are generally organized.

Scorer Comments:

“Uneven” responses took a clear position about changing the school schedule, but offered unclear or undeveloped support. Further, they often had difficulties with sentence boundary control. The “Uneven” response shown below does make a few clear points in support of a position, but none of those points are sufficiently developed.

Scorer Comments:

“Insufficient” responses attempted to take positions and offer support but were very brief, disorganized, or marked by severe errors in sentence control and/or grammar. In the sample response below, the student takes a clear position and offers minimal personal experience as support.

Scorer Comments:

“Unsatisfactory” responses often attempted to take positions regarding the prompt, but provided little or no coherent support. The response below offers a position and an obscure form of support.

Excellent

• Takes a clear position and develops it consistently with well-chosen reasons and/or examples across the response.
• Is well organized with strong transitions.
• Sustains variety in sentence structure and exhibits good word choice
• Errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation are few and do not interfere with understanding.

Skillful

• Takes a clear position and develops it with reasons and/or examples in parts of the response.
• Is clearly organized, but may lack some transitions and/or have occasional lapses in continuity.
• Exhibits some variety in sentence structure and some good word choices.
• Errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation do not interfere with understanding

Sufficient

• Takes a clear position and supports it with some reasons and/or examples.
• Is organized with ideas that are generally related, but there are few or no transitions.
• Exhibits control over sentence boundaries and sentence structure, but sentences and word choice may be simple and unvaried.
• Errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation do not interfere with understanding.

Uneven

(may be characterized by one or more of the following:)

• Takes a position and offers support, but may be unclear, repetitive, list-like, or undeveloped.
• Is unevenly organized; the response may be disjointed.
• Exhibits uneven control over sentence boundaries and sentence structure; may have some inaccurate word choices.
• Errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation sometimes interfere with understanding.

Insufficient

(may be characterized by one or more of the following:)

• Takes a position, but may be very unclear, very undeveloped, or very repetitive.
• Is very disorganized; thoughts are tenuously connected OR the response is too brief to detect organization.
• Minimal control over sentence boundaries and sentence structure; word choice may often be inaccurate.
• Errors in grammar or usage (such as missing words or incorrect word use or word order), spelling, and punctuation interfere with understanding in much of the response.

Unsatisfactory

(may be characterized by one or more of the following:)

• Attempts to take a position (addresses topic) but response is incoherent OR takes a position but provides no support; may only paraphrase the prompt.
• Has no apparent organization OR consists of a single statement.
• Minimal or no control over sentence boundaries and sentence structure; word choice may be inaccurate in much or all of the response.
• A multiplicity of errors in grammar or usage (such as missing words or incorrect word use or word order), spelling, and punctuation severely impedes understanding across the response.

Scorer Comments:

This student sustains an argument around the idea that lengthening the school year will subject students to additional stress and will result in their losing some opportunities: “You learn social skills at school but you can learn them just as easily while on vacation. If you go to another country for vacation you learn to accept and respect other cultures.” The student provides a clear, connected series of reasons to argue persuasively against lengthening the school year. While there are occasional spelling errors, overall the student is adept in varying sentence length and structure, providing evidence to back up his or her point of view. This response was rated “Excellent.”

Scorer Comments:

This “Excellent” response is articulate and persuasive about the positive value of time spent away from school. Sentences such as “Can a teacher teach a child values? No. Can a teacher even guess at what a child really thinks? Of course not,” not only demonstrate the writer’s use of varied syntax, but effectively express his or her idea that “values” and “really” thinking are as important as traditional academic subjects. The sophisticated analysis evident in lines such as “School is a place where children are prepared to survive in the world their parents created. Home is where children find out what kind of life is the right one for them” show this writer’s ability to get to the heart of a topic and offer a thoughtful, cogent response.

Scorer Comments:

In this “Skillful” response, the student provides numerous reasons to illustrate the point that lengthening the school year will not help students learn more because “every student has ample opportunity to learn, some just don’t want to learn.” The student elaborates on his or her reasons, noting not just that vacations can be educational but what he or she learns: “When my family and I go into the mountains in national forests we learn about animals and visit museums.” Though the last part of the essay is not as well-structured, the student continues to provide relevant reasons why the school year should not be lengthened. In this response, the student does not use the varied and complex sentence structure seen in the “Excellent” responses.

Scorer Comments:

This “Skillful” response develops a clear position for lengthening the school year. This response shows sound development and (with minor exceptions) control over grammar and syntax. The logic and syntactic variety of this response, however, are not as good as in the “Excellent” responses. The writer explains what he or she might accomplish in an extended school year, such as learning a trade. The writer’s arguments, however, are slightly less developed and slightly less eloquent than those of the “Excellent”responses.

Scorer Comments:

In this “Sufficient” response, the student provides a clear position in favor of a longer school year. The student cites several examples to support that position, such as the lack of long vacation breaks in China, but the examples are not linked to each other. The control of language is not as strong as in the “Skillful” and “Excellent” responses: “Most students, when they get out of school for the summer they forget what they learned the following year.” The student’s control of sentence boundaries and paragraph structure, as well as the generally appropriate use of language, make the paper clear overall.

Scorer Comments:

This “Sufficient” response argues against the lengthening of the school year, but the development of the argument is slightly unclear. The writer argues that “If the vacations are shorten the people will get tired of school, and will not pay attention in school,” and continues to offer some problems that might arise from this frustration. This point would be more effective if it were developed and supported by concrete examples. Though this writer has control over sentence boundaries for the most part, errors in punctuation (“Dear, School Board”), spelling (“shorten”) and syntax (“I think that we need the vacations to learn about other stuff outside the school other than just stuff in school.”) contribute to the “Sufficient” rating of this paper.

Scorer Comments:

This “Uneven” response takes a position against extending the school year, and offers some specific reasons why this is the best solution. The development of the paper is uneven, however. Although the student uses paragraph breaks, within each paragraph he or she simply lists a series of reasons rather than developing any one idea. The student’s unfamiliarity with effective syntax is displayed in some sentences such as “Students will be getting tired. Most students will be getting lazy.” Overall, this is an “Uneven” response that shows some promising and some problematic development.

Scorer Comments:

This “Uneven” response presents many reasons for preserving vacations “as they are.” The student makes some good points, although he or she does not always express them clearly. He or she notes that, for unmotivated students, “lengthing it will still be even worse because that gives them more time to make mistakes…” and points out that it might be more effective to introduce high-school level material in earlier grades. However, the paper is rather rambling, as the student has not structured his or her ideas into a clear or ordered format.

Scorer Comments:

This “Insufficient” response attempts to take a position and back it up with examples, but spelling, grammatical and syntactical errors keep it from being effective. The writer does not have control over sentence boundaries, and does not utilize the conventions of punctuation or capitalization. He or she does, however, offer some concrete examples (“like working on the car, Painting the house (walls), hunting and fishing, stuff we don’t Learn in school”) as support for the original position, and tries to conclude the essay (“So see thats why we need more time out uv school than in it.”). Overall, this essay offers more substance than those rated “Unsatisfactory,” but its clear problems keep it in the “Insufficient” range.

Scorer Comments:

In this “Insufficient” response, the student expresses a strong opinion against lengthening the school year: “If you make school long more kids will droop out.” Pervasive errors in spelling and sentence structure earned this paper an “Insufficient” rating. Nonetheless, the student does provide some good reasons; they needed to be better organized and expressed to earn a higher rating.

Scorer Comments:

Though this response is longer than many receiving the “Unsatisfactory” rating, the response does not exhibit control over sentence boundaries, and has other obvious grammatical and syntactical flaws.

Scorer Comments:

This “Unsatisfactory” response, though not badly written, is very undeveloped. It does not really provide reasons to support the student’s position against lengthening the school year beyond saying that “we are allready learning enough stuff in the period of time of school.”