Pennsylvania Writing Assessment Holistic Scoring Guide

Name Writing Assessment Holistic Scoring Guide Date

6: clear and consistent 5: reasonably consistent 4: adequate mastery 3: developing mastery 2: little mastery 1: little or no mastery mastery (10 points) mastery (8-9 points) (7 points) (5-6 points) (3-4 points) (1-2 points) Focus Essay has a sharp, distinct focus, Essay has a clear focus and Essay has adequate focus that Essay has a vague focus that Essay has a confused focus Essay has a complete absence of . and effectively and insightfully effectively develops a point of develops a point of view on the develops a point of view on the that develops a point of view focus that develops no viable develops a point of view, on the view on the issue and issue and demonstrates issue and demonstrates some on the issue that is seriously point of view on the issue and issue while demonstrating demonstrates strong critical competent critical thinking critical thinking limited, and reflects weak demonstrates no critical outstanding critical thinking thinking critical thinking thinking Content Essay uses substantive, specific Essay has specific and illustrative Essay has sufficient content that Essay has limited or repetitive Essay has superficial content Essay has irrelevant content and illustrative content, clearly content that generally uses uses adequate examples, reasons, content, inconsistent or providing inappropriate or and provides little or no appropriate examples, reasons, appropriate examples, reasons, and other evidence to support inadequate examples, reasons, or insufficient examples, evidence to support its position and other sophisticated ideas that and other evidence to support its its position other evidence to support its reasons, or other evidence to are particularly well developed to position position. support its position support its position Quality of Paper is exceptionally well Paper is well researched in detail Some aspects of the paper are Limited aspects of the paper are Paper demonstrates cursory Paper shows a distinct lack of Information / Evidence researched with accurate critical with mostly accurate critical researched with mostly accurate haphazardly researched, with research with often flawed research and/or evidence. It is evidence from a wide variety of evidence from a variety of critical evidence from limited often inconsistent or misleading or misleading information of devoid of any citations from sources that is all properly cited sources that is properly cited sources with some citations. evidence, from limited sources the central idea from one or any source content. with some citations. two cited sources. Organization Essay demonstrates obvious Essay is logically and Essay is appropriately organized, Essay is inconsistently organized Essay is poorly organized Essay has an absence of . control, clear coherence, and a appropriately organized; and demonstrates some and demonstrates a limited and demonstrates serious organization and an unfocused, smooth progression of ideas with demonstrates a clear coherence coherence and mostly focused focus and lapses in coherence problems with coherence , disjointed and/or incoherent sophisticated and subtle and a true focused progression of progression of ideas and a faulty progression of ideas focus, and a faulty progression of ideas transition between ideas. ideas progression of ideas Style Essay exhibits skillful use of Essay exhibits precision and Essay exhibits adequate but Essay exhibits weak vocabulary Essay exhibits very little use Essay exhibits no apparent . language (word choice) and variety in sentence structure and inconsistent facility in the use of and inappropriate and of language, uses very control over sentence structure meaningful variety in sentence word choice, while using a language, some precision and inconsistent word choice , limited vocabulary and has and word choice; displays structure, while using a varied, varied, accurate, and apt variety in sentence structure limited sentence variety and incorrect word choice with fundamental errors in accurate, and apt vocabulary that vocabulary that clearly conveys and word choice problematic sentence structure frequent problems in vocabulary effectively conveys the writer’s the writer’s tone sentence structure tone Conventions Essay is free of most errors in Essay is generally free of most Essay has mechanical and usage Essay has repeated weaknesses Essay has mechanical and Essay has mechanical and usage grammar, usage, and mechanics errors in grammar, usage, and errors not severe enough to resulting in an accumulation of usage errors that seriously errors so severe that the mechanics interfere significantly with the errors in grammar, usage, and interfere with the writer’s writer’s ideas are difficult, if not writer’s purpose mechanics purpose impossible, to understand Documentation Format The writing demonstrates an The writing demonstrates a The writing demonstrates a The writing demonstrates a The writing demonstrates The writing demonstrates a (Bibliography/ Works exceptionally strong strong commitment to the commitment to the quality limited commitment to the little commitment to the disregard for the Cited/ commitment to the quality and quality and significance of and significance of research and quality and significance of quality and significance of conventions of research significance of research and the research and the accuracy of the the accuracy of the written research and the accuracy of the research and the accuracy of writing. Lack of proper Parenthetical citations) accuracy of the written written document. Errors are document. Minor errors, while written document. Errors begin the written document. documentation result in document. Errors, if any, are few and minor and do not perhaps noticeable, do not to violate the rules of Frequent documentation plagiarism. minor. blatantly violate the rules of blatantly violate the rules of documentation. errors in result instances of documentation. documentation. plagiarism.