These exemplars have been designed to stimulate and facilitate discussions of student writing, teacher expectations, and instructional strategies for improving student writing, with the ultimate goal of improving teacher instruction and student writing.
Much work has gone into the development of these exemplars. First, a committee of master teachers created the tasks, focusing on the ELA Standard Course of Study for each grade level. Then, the NCDPI Certified Trainers of Writing encouraged teachers within their districts to have students complete the on-demand tasks. Teachers and/or supervisors from each district then reviewed the student work, selected and annotated works representative of each grade level, and submitted them to NCDPI. Finally, consultants at NCDPI facilitated teacher work sessions in which the final papers were selected, discussed, and annotated. Each annotated composition in this collection is the result of approximately 16-20 hours of evaluation by ELA educators from across the state.
Obviously, these exemplars are not intended to reflect classroom assessment practice. Teachers cannot spend that many hours assessing each student’s work within their regular classrooms. Additionally, just as medical students dissect a cadaver to understand more fully the health of the body, so the teachers in this project painstakingly pulled apart and analyzed the student work to understand its strengths and weaknesses. No doctor would treat a living patient as harshly as the autopsy does, and no teacher should treat a live student as impersonally as we did these anonymous samples.
These exemplars also are not intended to replace or supplement information from NCDPI Assessment about scoring of the state writing assessment. While similarities exist between the two projects (on-demand writing, types of writing, etc.), the ultimate purposes differ and the levels of classroom expectation may or may not reflect precisely the levels of achievement on the writing test. The standard-setting process for the writing assessment achievement levels is more formal and official than our approach of reflecting teacher opinions of the compositions as low, middle, or high.
Finally, these exemplars should not be used to "calibrate"
teachers or dictate grades within a classroom. While individual teachers
will most likely agree on the progression from low to high within these few
samples, the actual “cut” points between low and middle and middle
and high are intentionally not delineated. Writing and its assessment are inherently
subjective. Because groups of ELA educators worked on several steps of the process,
these exemplars illustrate a generally accepted consensus, rather than a unanimous
endorsement. Teachers may engage in both affirmation and argument as they discuss
the compositions, the annotations, and the suggested next steps.
Please always remember that these papers are meant to spark discussion and explore
related instructional strategies.