SKILL

AREA

6

Responses at this level:

5

Responses at this level:

4

Responses at this level:

3

Responses at this level:

2

Responses at this level:

1

Responses at this level:

Meaning: the extent to which the writing exhibits sound understanding, analysis, and explanation, of the writing task and text(s)

 convey an accurate and in-depth understanding of the topic, audience, and purpose for the writing task

 offer insightful and thorough analysis and explanation in support of the topic

 convey an accurate and complete understanding of the topic, audience, and purpose for the writing task

 offer clear and explicit analysis and explanation in support of the topic

 convey an accurate although somewhat basic understanding of the topic, audience, and purpose for the writing task

 offer partial analysis and explanation in support of the topic

 convey a partly accurate understanding of the topic, audience, and purpose of the  writing task

 offer limited analysis or superficial explanation that only partially support the topic

 convey a confused or largely inaccurate understanding of the topic, audience, and purpose for the writing task

 offer unclear analysis or unwarranted explanations  that fail to support the topic

 provide no evidence of understanding the writing task or topic

 make incoherent explanations that do not support the topic

Development:  the extent to which ideas are elaborated using specific and relevant details and/or evidence to support the thesis

 develop ideas clearly and fully, effectively integrating and elaborating on specific textual evidence from a variety of sources

 effectively discriminate between relevant and irrelevant information and between fact and opinion

 develop ideas clearly and consistently, incorporating and explaining specific textual evidence from a variety of sources

 discriminate between relevant and irrelevant information and between fact and opinion

 develop some ideas more fully than others, using relevant textual evidence from a variety of sources

 attempt to discriminate between relevant and irrelevant information and between fact and opinion

 develop ideas briefly or partially, using some textual evidence but without much elaboration or from limited sources

 may contain a mix of relevant and irrelevant information and/or confuse the difference between fact and opinion

 attempt to offer some development of ideas, but textual evidence is vague, repetitive, or unjustified

 contain irrelevant and/or inaccurate information and/or confuse the difference between fact and opinion

 completely lack development and do not include textual evidence

 contain irrelevant and/or inaccurate information and completely fail to distinguish fact from opinion

Organization: the extent to which the writing establishes a clear thesis and maintains direction, focus, and coherence

 skillfully establish and maintain consistent focus on a clear and compelling thesis

 exhibit logical and coherent structure with claims, evidence and interpretations that convincingly support the thesis

 make skillful use of transition words and phrases

 effectively establish and maintain consistent focus on a clear thesis

 exhibit a logical sequence of claims, evidence, and interpretations to support the thesis and effectively used transitions

 make effective use of transition words and phrases

 establish and maintain focus on a clear thesis

 exhibit a logical sequence of claims, evidence, and interpretations but ideas within paragraphs may be inconsistently organized

 make some attempt to use basic transition words and phrases

 establish but fail to consistently maintain focus on a basic thesis

 exhibit a basic structure but lack the coherence of consistent claims, evidence, and interpretations

 make an inconsistent attempt to use some basic transition words or phrases

 establish a confused or irrelevant thesis and fail to maintain  focus

 exhibit an attempt to organize ideas into a beginning, middle, and end, but lack coherence

 make little attempt to use transition words and phrases

 fail to include a thesis or maintain focus

 complete lack of organization and coherence

 make no attempt to use transition words or phrases  

Language:  the extent to which the writing reveals an awareness of audience and purpose through word choice and sentence variety

 are stylistically sophisticated, using language that is precise and engaging, with a notable sense of voice and awareness of audience and purpose

 effectively incorporate a range of varied sentence patterns to reveal syntactic fluency

 use language that is fluent and original, with evident awareness of audience and purpose

 incorporate varied sentence patterns that reveal an awareness of different syntactic structures

 use appropriate language, with some awareness of audience and purpose

 make some attempt to include different sentence patterns but with awkward or uneven success

 rely on basic vocabulary, with little awareness of audience or purpose

 reveal a limited awareness of how to vary sentence patterns and rely on a limited range syntactic structures

 use language that is imprecise or unsuitable for the audience or purpose

 reveal a confused understanding of how to write in complete sentences and little or no ability to vary sentence patterns

 use language that is incoherent or inappropriate

 include a preponderance of sentence fragments and run-ons that significantly hinder comprehension  

2/3/03

Conventions:  the extent to which the writing exhibits conventional spelling, punctuation, paragraphing, capitalization, and grammar

 demonstrate control of the conventions with essentially no errors, even with sophisticated language

 demonstrate control of the conventions, exhibiting occasional errors only when using sophisticated language (e.g., punctuation of complex sentences)

 demonstrate partial control, exhibiting occasional errors that do not hinder comprehension (e.g., incorrect use of homonyms)

 demonstrate emerging control, exhibiting frequent errors that somewhat hinder comprehension (e.g., agreement of pronouns and antecedents; spelling of basic words)

 demonstrate lack of control, exhibiting frequent errors that make comprehension difficult (e.g., subject verb agreement; use of slang)

 illegible or unrecognizable as literate English