Writing Rubric Score Explanation:
These samples are not intended to be benchmark papers for any particular score, but rather a sampling of the variety of papers a teacher might expect for a given prompt. Some students may be writing above or below the levels of work shown. The samples, however, are intended to give teachers help in scoring papers by showing the variety of ways students may approach a prompt.
Students receive a score of 2 if their work exhibits a solid overall demonstration of the criteria. Students receive a score of 1 when there is a question of whether the paper exhibits the criteria or if it is clear that the student only has a partial understanding of the criteria. Students receive a score of 0 when their work does not demonstrate the criteria at all, or shows no understanding of the criteria.
Please note: These examples are from a 2006-2007 field test. The prompts and design have been modified since then, so students’ scores, especially in the Ideas and Content area, may be slightly different using the 2007-2008 assessments.
Gloss: My New Dog and Me (title) Oh my gosh! I was about to cry because I can’t believe what mom and dad said. They said I could get a dog. First, I will name it Charly. Next, I will take him for a walk on the sidewalk and play with him. Finally, I will feed him his food and water and then I will give him a ball. And after that we will go to sleep. Goodnight! Z-Z-Z.
Notes: The student writes a story about getting a dog.
Ideas and Content: The student effectively uses the planning page to make a web and to check off the ideas he or she has included from the web in his or her story. The student includes numerous details such as who (Charly, parents, student), what (get a dog), where (on the sidewalk), etc.
Organization and Focus: The student’s paper stays focused on what will happen when he or she gets the dog and is well organized according to what will happen first, next, and last. The student uses sequence signal words (“first,” “next,” and “finally”) appropriately.
Style: The student’s personality jumps off the page when he or she starts with “Oh my gosh!” and ends with “Z-Z-Z-Z.” Additional descriptive words would make the writing come to life even more.
Conventions: The student has a solid grasp on first grade language conventions.
Gloss: Sharky and Me (title) My shark is blue. He eats fish. He has sharp teeth. He is little. He grows. He likes to sleep. He likes to swim. Sometimes he looks at me. Sometimes he comes to me. He does flips. I love my shark.
Notes: The student writes sentences about a shark.
Ideas and Content: The student draws a picture and attempts to use a web for planning. However, there does not seem to be a lot of connection between the planning and the actual writing.
Organization and Focus: The student lists facts about his or her shark in random order with no connection between the sentences. The student writes about an animal as requested in the prompt, but does not attempt to write a story as the prompt requests.
Style: It is obvious that the student likes his or her shark and the student uses words such as “blue,” “sharp,” and “flips” to make the text more vivid. He or she needs to be encouraged to create variety with sentences and word use because more than half of the sentences begin with the word “He.”
Conventions: The student demonstrates a solid understanding of sentence capitalization, punctuation, and sentence construction. Spelling is inconsistent because although many grade-level words are spelled correctly, basic words such as “me,” “has,” and “looks” are misspelled. The student does not appear to know how to wrap words from line to line and thus crowds words at the end of lines.
Gloss: Me and my pet Gorilla would make a club house. It would be the cutest clubhouse you ever saw. We would watch Scooby Doo movie. And we would climb trees and eat bananas.
Notes: The student imagines some activities he or she would do with a gorilla.
Ideas and Content: The student includes details by naming specific activities that he or she and the pet gorilla would do together (make a clubhouse, eat bananas, watch a Scooby Doo movie, etc.).
Organization and Focus: The first two sentences demonstrate the student’s ability to join ideas together in an organized fashion. The final two sentences begin with “And,” so they do not show the same level of organization. The writing also gets a little off the topic of the pet gorilla when the writer discusses how cute the clubhouse would be.
Style: There is evidence of the writer’s personality in his or her use of the phrase “the cutest clubhouse you ever saw.” He or she uses some descriptive language, “Scooby Doo movies ,” and “cutest clubhouse,” but, overall the writing could be more colorful.
Conventions: The student does not have a solid grasp on where sentences end and begin.
Gloss: One sunny day first in the morning I found a cat in the cornfield. Next I took the cat to my mom. At last I got to take the cat home.
Notes: The student writes one sentence each for the beginning, middle, and end of his or her story.
Ideas and Content: The student uses the planning space, but does not include many of the ideas written on the planning page in his or her writing. Though the student only writes a few sentences, the ideas appear to be original.
Organization and Focus: The paper is organized to tell what happened first, next, and last, but the word order at the beginning is a bit confusing: “One sunny day first in the morning…”
Style: The student adds some color to the brief writing by using the word “cornfield,” but the majority of the sentence follow the same pattern “First, I,” Next I,” “Last I.”
Conventions: The student spaces words nicely and capitalizes the beginning of each sentence and the word “I” consistently, however, because he or she also capitalizes the word “The” in the middle of a sentence, he or she exhibit only partial mastery of correct capitalization. Many words are spelled correctly such as “last,” “day,” first,’ and “home,” but other words such as “take” and “took” are misspelled.
Gloss: We will have fun. We walk to school.
Notes: The student writes two ideas about what he or she would do with a pet.
Ideas and Content: The planning page shows that the student wanted to write about a dog, demonstrating some understanding of the prompt. The student’s picture is small and unclear.
Organization and Focus: Because the dog is only mentioned in the planning space, it is not clear that the student fully understands the prompt. The words in his or her sentences make sense in the order in which they are written, but the paper as a whole has little organization and its focus is unclear.
Style: There is little style to the paper because it is so short, but the fact that the two sentences start with the same word and each have four words demonstrate that the student needs practice with using descriptive words, adding personality, and varying sentence patterns.
Conventions: The paper is difficult to read because the student has trouble with spacing. Sight words such as “we,” “to,” and “fun” are correctly spelled.
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Last Modified: Monday, 23 March 2009