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Scoring of Essay
How composing and written expression are scored
How usage and mechanics are scored
Online scoring examples
Checklist
Composing/Written Expression Rubric
Score Point
4The writer demonstrates consistent, though not necessarily perfect, control of the Composing/Written Expression domain's features.
The writing at this score point level:
- Focuses on a clear position and adapts content to audience, purpose, and situation.
- Draws effective conclusions.
- Addresses counterclaims when appropriate.
- Contains precise and relevant evidence (examples, illustrations, reasons, events, and/or details) that suits the intended purpose and audience, clarifies and defends the writer’s position, and fully and clearly elaborates ideas.
- Organizes ideas in a sustained and logical manner and exhibits unity by having few if any digressions, maintaining a consistent point of view, using highly effective and purposeful transitions to connect ideas within and across paragraphs, and having a strong lead and closure.
- Develops a rhythmic flow throughout the piece that results from the purposeful variation or repetition of sentence construction for effect, the appropriate subordination of ideas, and/or the effective embedding of modifiers.
- Contains highly specific word choice, descriptive language, and selected information that create a purposeful and appropriate tone and enhance the writer’s voice.
3The writer demonstrates reasonable, but not consistent, control of the Composing/Written Expression domain’s features. The writer may control some features of the domain more than others.
The writing at this score point level:
- Focuses on a clear position and generally adapts content to audience, purpose, and situation.
- Draws reasonable conclusions.
- Attempts to address counterclaims when appropriate.
- Contains relevant evidence (examples, illustrations, reasons, events, and/or details) that suits the intended purpose and audience, clarifies and defends the writer’s position, and elaborates ideas, though some thinness or unevenness in elaboration may be present.
- Organizes ideas in a logical manner and exhibits unity by having a few minor digressions and/or shifts in point of view, using transitions to connect ideas within and across paragraphs, and having a skillful if not sophisticated lead and closure.
- Develops a rhythmic flow throughout most of the piece that results from some variation of sentence construction, subordination of ideas, and/or embedding of modifiers.
- Contains specific word choice, descriptive language, and selected information that create tone and enhance the writer’s voice.
2The writer demonstrates inconsistent control of several of the Composing/Written Expression domain's features, indicating significant weakness.
The writing at this score point level:
- Focuses on a position, but inconsistently adapts content to audience, purpose, and situation.
- May not draw conclusions.
- May not address counterclaims when appropriate.
- Contains limited evidence that suits the intended purpose and audience, clarifies or defends the writer’s position, and elaborates ideas; may be a list of general, underdeveloped statements.
- Organizes ideas in a limited or inconsistent manner and may lack unity due to major digressions and/or shifts in point of view, limited or inconsistent use of transitions within and across paragraphs, and a weak or missing lead and/or closure.
- Develops an uneven rhythmic flow throughout the piece as a result of a limited variation in sentence construction.
- Exhibits inconsistent tone or voice as a result of limited word choice, descriptive language, and/or selected information.
1The writer demonstrates little or no control of most of the Composing/Written Expression domain's features.
The writing at this score point level:
- Fails to focus on a position or to adapt content to audience, purpose, and situation.
- Fails to draw conclusions.
- Fails to address counterclaims when appropriate.
- Contains little or no evidence that suits the intended purpose and audience or that elaborates ideas.
- Fails to organize ideas and lacks unity as a result of major digressions and shifts in point of view, the absence of transitions connecting ideas, and no lead and/or closure.
- Lacks a rhythmic flow as a result of little or no variation in sentence construction.
- Lacks tone and voice as a result of little or no specific word choice, descriptive language, and/or selected information.
Score Point
4The writer demonstrates consistent, though not necessarily perfect, control of the Usage and Mechanics domain's features.
The writing at this score point level:
- Exhibits consistent control of sentence formation, avoiding fragments, run-ons, and comma splices.
- Exhibits consistent control of usage, including subject/verb agreement, pronoun agreement, pronoun case, adjectives and adverbs, verb tenses, plurals and possessives, homophones, and avoidance of double negatives.
- Exhibits consistent control of mechanics, including punctuation, capitalization, formatting, and spelling.
3The writer demonstrates reasonable, but not consistent, control of the Usage and Mechanics domain’s features. The writer exhibits control which outweighs occasional errors present in the paper.
The writing at this score point level:
- Exhibits reasonable control of sentence formation, avoiding fragments, run-ons, and comma splices.
- Exhibits reasonable control of usage, including subject/verb agreement, pronoun agreement, pronoun case, adjectives and adverbs, verb tenses, plurals and possessives, homophones, and avoidance of double negatives.
- Exhibits reasonable control of mechanics, including punctuation, capitalization, formatting, and spelling.
2The writer demonstrates inconsistent control of several of the Usage and Mechanics domain’s features. Evidence of the author’s knowledge of the domain appears alongside frequent errors. The density and variety of errors outweigh the control present in the paper.The writing at this score point level:
- Exhibits inconsistent control of sentence formation, including occasional fragments, run-ons, and comma splices.
- Exhibits inconsistent control of usage, including subject/verb agreement, pronoun agreement, pronoun case, adjectives and adverbs, verb tenses, plurals and possessives, homophones, and double negatives.
- Exhibits inconsistent control of mechanics, including punctuation, capitalization, formatting, and spelling.
1The writer demonstrates little or no control of most of the Usage and Mechanics domain’s features. Frequent and severe errors in usage and mechanics distract the reader and may make the writing hard to understand. Even when meaning is not significantly affected, the density and variety of errors overwhelm the performance and keep it from meeting minimum standards of competence.The writing at this score point level:
- Exhibits little or no control of sentence formation, including fragments, run-ons, and comma splices.
- Exhibits little or no control of usage, including subject/verb agreement, pronoun agreement, pronoun case, adjectives and adverbs, verb tenses, plurals and possessives, homophones, and double negatives.
- Exhibits little or no control of mechanics, including punctuation, capitalization, formatting, and spelling.