Grade 6 Instructional Writing Rubric* (Last Revised 11/1/2012)

Grade 6 Instructional Writing Rubric* (Last Revised 11/1/2012) Aligned to Next Generation West Virginia Content Standards and Objectives for English Language Arts and Literacy Smarter Balanced Claim 2: Students can produce effective and well-grounded writing for a range of purposes and audiences. NARRATIVE 4 3 2 1 Exemplary – Exceeds Standard Proficient – Meets Standard Partial – Approaches Standard Minimal – Begins Standard f

o The writer The writer The writer The writer t

n  clearly focuses and maintains the  adequately focuses and generally  somewhat maintains the narrative,  shows an attempt to maintain the e narrative, real or imagined, maintains the narrative, real or real or imagined, throughout with narrative, real or imagined, but may m e throughout imagined, throughout some minor drift in focus provide little or no focus t a t  effectively engages and orients the  adequately engages and orients the  somewhat engages the reader by  may show an attempt to S

s reader by reader by o establishing a context o establish a context u establishing a context establishing a context c o o o introducing a narrator and/or o introduce a narrator and/or o introducing a narrator and/or introducing a narrator and/or F o o characters characters / e characters characters but the response may be very brief, s o have major drift or be confusing or p r ambiguous u P The writer The writer The writer The writer  effectively creates a sequence of  adequately creates a sequence of  creates an inconsistent and uneven  uses little or no discernible events, real or imagined, that events, real or imagined, that sequence of events, real or sequence of events, real or unfolds naturally and logically from unfolds naturally and logically from imagined, from beginning to end imagined, to convey the narrative beginning to end beginning to end  effectively and consistently  adequately incorporates a variety of  inconsistently incorporates basic  incorporates few or no transition

n incorporates a variety of transition transition words, phrases and transition words, phrases and words, phrases and clauses o i

t words, phrases and clauses to: clauses to: clauses with little variety to: a

z o convey sequence o convey sequence o convey sequence i n o signal shifts from one time o signal shifts form one time o signal shifts from one time a g frame or setting to another frame or setting to another frame or setting to another r

O o show relationships among o show relationships among o show relationships among experiences and events experiences and events experiences and events  provides an effective opening  provides an adequate opening  provides a weak opening  provides little or no opening with extraneous ideas that may intrude  provides a powerful conclusion that  provides an adequate conclusion  provides a weak conclusion that  does not provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on the that follows from and reflects on the partially follows from the narrated follows from the narrated narrated experiences or events narrated experiences or events experiences or events experiences or events e The writer The writer The writer The writer m

p  provides thorough and effective  provides adequate elaboration:  provides uneven and cursory  provides minimal elaboration, using o l elaboration: o sufficient details elaboration: little or no: e v o vivid details o appropriate dialogue o uneven details o details e

D engaging dialogue limited dialogue dialogue : o o acceptable pacing o o t n o exciting pacing o adequate description o inconsistent pacing o pacing n

o o interesting description o simplistic description o description i t

a  effectively uses a variety of  adequately uses a variety of  uses uneven and inconsistent  uses little or no narrative techniques r o narrative techniques that advance narrative techniques that generally narrative techniques that partially that advance the story or illustrate b a the story or illustrate the experience advance the story or illustrate the advance the story or illustrate the the experience l

E experience experience e v i t a r r a N f o d The writer The writer The writer The writer n a

 clearly and effectively expresses  adequately expresses experiences  unevenly expresses experiences or  vaguely expresses experiences or e

g experiences or events or events events events a  effectively uses  adequately uses  uses  uses u g o precise words and phrases o precise words and phrases o simplistic words and phrases o confusing or incorrect words n a o vivid descriptive details o relevant descriptive details o inconsistent descriptive details and phrases L y r o engaging sensory language o appropriate sensory language o limited sensory language o little or no descriptive details a l u b a c o V *This instructional writing rubric is designed as an instructional tool for teachers and students to use as they begin implementation of the Next Generation WV Content Standards and Objectives in the classroom. The existing WV Writing Rubric, aligned to the 21st Century WV Content Standards and Objectives, will continue to be used to assess student writing produced for WESTEST 2 Online Writing, a component of WESTEST 2, through 2014. Classroom teachers, schools and school systems implementing the Next Generation Content Standards prior to 2014 should use this instructional rubric to assess student growth in writing relevant to the expectations set forth in the Next Generation Standards prior to 2014-15 when the SMARTER Balanced Assessment is scheduled to be administered as the state summative assessment.