Expository Scoring Guide

Table of Contents

The intent of the assignment is to test the students' ability to recount and reflect upon a personally significant experience. The prompt asks students to narrate the experience and their reactions.

Features of the Guide:

Each student response is rated on a 6-point scale (6 is the highest) for each of the following features:

Focus - the clarity with which a paper presents a central theme/significant or unifying event.

Support/Elaboration - the degree to which the event is developed by specific details and explanation.

Organization - the clarity of the logical flow of episodes and ideas and the explicitness of the text structure or plan.

Integration - evaluation of the paper based on a focused, global judgment of how effectively the paper as a whole uses basic features to address the assignment.

In addition, each student response Is rated + or - for the following feature:

Conventions - use of standard written English.

Overview

This feature examines whether the subject or topic of the narrative is clear. To be successful, the response must include a reaction.

• The best papers may either announce the nature of the event and its effect in opening statements OR draw the reader into the event and comment on its significance at the end. In either case, reactions are evident and the opening and closing effectively function as such.
  
• Less well-focused papers may narrate a series of episodes without tying them together as a single experience or impression. Reactions may be minimal or lacking.

Terminology

1	No event Subject unclear Insufficient
2	Subject unclear Event unclear Multiples Sufficiency
3	Subject or event unclear Can infer central theme Multiples Sufficiency
4	Subject and event clear Reactions present but may not be stated May end abruptly
5	Subject and event clear Reactions stated - may be uneven and general Must reach closure
6	Subject and event clear Reactions more specific Must reach closure

Key considerations for scoring:

Overview

Degree to which the details develop actions within the event, the actors, and their reactions. The quality of elaboration depends on its specificity, depth, and sufficiency.

Terminology

Specificity:

Achieved through the use of concrete details, examples, and reasons.

Depth:

Achieved by providing progressively more detailed description and explanation.

1	Little or no elaboration Confusing Insufficient
2	A little support/elaboration attempted Unrelated bare list Sufficiency
3	General elaboration Related bare list Sufficiency
4	Some elaboration Mix of general and specific Sufficient, but not much depth
5	Most major elements supported Elaboration is specific Some depth
6	All major elements supported Greater depth

*Papers scored 4, 5, or 6 produce sufficient support/elaboration that increases
in specificity as papers become more developed.

Key Considerations for Scoring:

Overview

Degree to which the paper exhibits a clear structure or plan of development (beginning, middle, end) and whether the points are logically related to one another.

Key considerations are coherence and cohesion.

• Fully developed papers will use transitions and paragraphs to signal the chronological text structure.
  
• Less developed papers will use few cohesive ties or transitions to cue the logical relationships. These papers may also fail to use paragraphing or use it inappropriately.
  
• Some less developed papers may have digressions.

Terminology

Coherence - The overall plan or structure of the paper

Cohesion - the connection of one sentence to the next

1	Ideas not related Insufficient
2	Structure hard to infer Sufficiency
3	Some evidence of structure May have inappropriate paragraphing Sufficiency
4	Structure is evident May be paragraphed Some coherence and cohesion May have minor gaps and digressions
5	Generally strong paragraphing, coherence, and cohesion May have a minor digression
6	Strong paragraphing, coherence, and cohesion More than one sentence in opening and closing paragraphs

* A well-developed one-paragraph paper could receive a 4, 5 or 6.

Key Considerations for Scoring:

Expository Scoring Guide

beginning of Narrative Scoring Guide Table of Contents