Scoring Guide
4 The response
•demonstrates a thoughtful, comprehensive grasp of the text.
•accurately and coherently provides specific textual details and examples to support the thesis and main ideas.
•demonstrates a clear understanding of the ambiguities, nuances, and complexities of the text.
•provides a variety of sentence types and uses precise, descriptive language.
•contains few, if any, errors in the conventions of the English language. (Errors are generally first-draft in nature.)
Response to informational passages:
•thoughtfully anticipates and addresses the reader’s potential misunderstandings, biases, and expectations.
Response to literary passages:
•clearly demonstrates an awareness of the author’s use of literary and/or stylistic devices.
3 The response
•demonstrates a comprehensive grasp of the text.
•accurately and coherently provides general textual details and examples to support the thesis and main ideas.
•demonstrates a general understanding of the ambiguities, nuances, and complexities of the text.
•provides a variety of sentence types and uses some, descriptive language.
•may contains some errors in the conventions of the English language. (Errors do not interfere with the reader’s understanding of the essay.)
Response to informational passages:
•anticipates and addresses the reader’s potential misunderstandings, biases, and expectations.
Response to literary passages:
• demonstrates an awareness of the author’s use of literary and/or stylistic devices.
2 The response
•demonstrates a limited grasp of the text.
•provides few, if any, textual details and examples to support the thesis and main ideas.
•demonstrates limited or no understanding of the ambiguities, nuances, and complexities of the text.
•provides few, if any, types of sentences and uses basic, predictable language.
•may contains several errors in the conventions of the English language. (Errors may interfere with the reader’s understanding of the essay.)
Response to informational passages:
•may address the reader’s potential misunderstandings, biases, and expectations, but in a limited manner.
Response to literary passages:
•may demonstrate an awareness of the author’s use of literary and/or stylistic devices.
1 The response
•demonstrates minimal grasp of the text.
•may provide no textual details and examples to support the thesis and main ideas.
•may demonstrate no understanding of the ambiguities, nuances, and complexities of the text.
•may provide no sentence variety and uses limited vocabulary.
•may contains serious errors in the conventions of the English language. (Errors interfere with the reader’s understanding of the essay.)
Response to informational passages:
•does not address the reader’s potential misunderstandings, biases, and expectation.
Response to literary passages:
•does not demonstrate awareness of the author’s use of literary and/or stylistic devices.
*Conventions of the English language refer to grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and usage.
