Grade 4 – Personal and Fictional Narrative Rubric

Grade 4 – Personal and Fictional Narrative Rubric
Six Traits 4 3 2 1
IDEAS &
CONTENT
• Includes a clearly
presented central idea with
relevant facts, supporting
details, or explanations
• Establishes a well
developed idea/plot, and
setting
• Provides meaningful
insight into why
event/experience was
memorable
ORGANIZATION • Organizing structure that
includes paragraphs
• Engages reader creatively,
relates significant events,
and moves to a clear
conclusion
VOICE • Voice chosen is
appropriate to topic,
purpose, and audience
• Writing is expressive,
SENTENCE
FLUENCY
engaging, and/or sincere
• Sentences flow
• Sentence length,
structure, and complexity
is varied
WORD CHOICE • Uses vivid descriptive
language and concrete
sensory details
• Enables the reader to
visualize the events or
experiences
CONVENTIONS • Contains few if any errors
in conventions that makes
the writing easy to read
and understand
• Includes a central idea with
mostly relevant facts,
supporting details, or
explanations
• Establishes an idea/plot
and setting
• Provides meaningful insight
into why event/experience
was memorable
• Organizing structure that
includes paragraphs
• Engages the reader,
relates significant events,
and moves to a conclusion
• Voice is present
• Shows an awareness of
audience
• Writing is somewhat
engaging and expressive
• Sentences flow
• Sentence structures are
varied
• Uses descriptive language
and concrete sensory
details
• Enables the reader to
visualize the events or
experiences
• Contains some convention
errors that do not interfere
with the meaning
• Includes a central idea with
limited facts, supporting
details, and/or explanations
• Establishes a weak
idea/plot and setting
• Provides little insight into
why the event/experience
was memorable
• Organizing structure with
very few paragraphs
• Minimally developed
sequence of events and
fails to fully engage the
reader or conclude
• Voice is inconsistent or
weak
• Shows limited awareness
of audience
• Sentences are fragmented,
run-on or confusing
• Sentence structures are
limited in variety
• Uses limited, repetitive
word choice
• Does not give a visual
picture
• Contains frequent
convention error that are
noticeable and confuse the
reader
• Includes a central idea but
lacks related facts,
supporting details, and/or
explanations
• Establishes no real
idea/plot or setting
• Provides no insight into
why the event/experience
was memorable
• Organization lacks
paragraphing structure
• Sequence of events is not
present or confusing and
fails to engage the reader
or conclude
• Little or no voice is evident
• Awareness of audience or
personal involvement is not
evident
• Sentences are incomplete
and/or unclear
• Uses dull, repetitive word
choice
• Word choice may confuse
the reader
• Contains so many
convention errors that the
writing is difficult to follow
3=proficient 2 and below=non-proficient, still developing revised 2/17/2005

Soccer
Fourth Grade
My brother plays soccer at Amy Blank, and
at a reall soccer feild.
At the soccer feild there is a plase near the
end. It is behind a bliding, it is like a dich.
Micky,s brother play soccer so I see Micky.
We look for lisrds. We haven’t found any
but at Falls School Micky cout one.
My brother also plays soccer at Amy Blank.
Micky and I find a spot and pract’s king
sometimes I play in the playground. wile
Micky waches the soccer game.
these arethe best
weekends!
Rubric Score 1:
The writer includes a vague
central idea (brother plays
soccer…the field…catching
lizards…playing on the
playground), but does not
establish a real idea/plot.
The details are not
organized in a paragraphing
structure causing the
sequence of events to be
confusing.
The writer attempts to
describe “a place near the
end of the soccer field that
“is like a ditch”; but both the
place and purpose for
describing it are unclear.
Conventions are sometimes
incorrectly used, and many
high frequency words and
word parts are incorrectly
spelled (plase, dich, wile,
waches).
The misspellings do not
interfere with
comprehension, but do cause
the reader to slow down to
decode it.
This paper compares to a 1
on a 4 point rubric.

A Trip to The Zoo
Fourth Grade
It was a bright sunny morning My sisters and I were
getting ready to go to the zoo. We had just gotten are
favorite outfits on. Then we went downstairs and we all had
are absoult favorite cereals. Mine was coco puffs. After we
ate, we heard our mom and stepdad yelled “ARE YOU GIRLS
READY YET” we yelled back “OF COURSE.” They knew we
wouldn’t miss the zoo for anything. Next we had to put are
delishuse lunchs into are paper bags that we had decorated.
Then our mom and stepdad finally were ready and came
downstairs. We told tem we pack their boring lunchs to.
Finally it was time to go to the zoo. Are parents told us it
might take a while because we were going to the Sacramento
zoo.
We finally got to the zoo. First we saw the tigers,
lions, and bears. My sister thought the bears were scary.
Then we saw so many other animals I can’t even remember all
their names. Then we went on a tiger rollercoaster. We went
on it about 4 times. Then when we were on it for the 3 rd time
my sister screamed so loud that I felt like I was going to die.
Then we had to go home. On that long ride home our parents
knew my sisters and I had had the best time of our lifes. The
End
Rubric Score 2:
The writer clearly states his/her
main idea and stays on topic the
whole paper. There is an obvious
beginning, middle, end and an
attempt to show emotion when
the writer states, “my sister
screamed so loud that I felt like I
was going to die.”
There was an effort to show
voice through the use of humor
when she described the
“delishuse” and “boring” lunches.
To make the voice effective they
would need to add meaningful
details to that section.
The sentence fluency is adequate
with attempts to blend dialogue
and sentence length. (“Are you
girls ready yet” and “Mine was
coco puffs”)
Use of conventions is good with
some spelling errors that do not
interfere with meaning.
This paper is a 2 on a 4 point
rubric

My Saturday
Fourth Grade
On a Saturday, at around 10:30 am was the best
Saturday yet. It was near the end of my Tae Kwon Do
class when my teacher was about to announce if we
graduated to the next belt level.
As he was saying the names in alphabetical order, I was
becoming impatient, that I started to fidget. After I
stopped squirming around I finally heard my name, I
stood up, waiting to find out if I graduated or not, my
answer came, “…has graduated from white belt level to
yellow belt level, first degree!”, said my teacher. I was
jumping for joy, I felt so happy and proud of myself.
Then I took my certificate, my new belt, and bowed.
After everyone was called and happy, our teacher said
chuckling, “Now you guys all look like bumblebees!” We
looked like bumblebees because our uniforms were black
and our belts were yellow. Everyone started splitting
their sides of laughter. Then we all had a big celebration
with cake, soda, and candy.
Moreover, that’s why this was my best Saturday yet.
Rubric Score 3:
The writer includes a central idea
with relevant facts, supporting
details (“…my teacher was about
to announce if we graduated to
the next belt level.”) The writer
has an organizing structure with
a clear beginning, middle and
end. The author attempted to
build momentum through
effective use of word choice (“I
was becoming so impatient that I
started to fidget, after I stopped
squirming I finally…”).
Emotion, insight and voice are
present in several areas of the
paper, (“I was jumping for joy”, “I
felt so happy and proud of
myself” or “Now you guys look
like bumblebees”).
This writer demonstrates
knowledge of conventions
especially for a 4 th grader.
This paper is a 3 on a 4-point
rubric.

Fourth Grade
Hmmm…my favorite Saturday. That’s a hard one, but I
think there’s one that reigns over all. It was about two weeks ago.
We went to Scandia, where we did minutre golf. My parents were
gone, so my babysitter took a friend and I. It was quite fun, for
many reasons. One, I lost my golfball about three times!
It was a Saturday night. I was with my babysitter, and my
sister was at a football game. So I said “I’m not going to sit here all
night doing nothing!”, then we called my friend, Brian, to see if he
could come. He could, so at about six o’clock, we headed out into
the wild world of flying golfballs.
It was only a about 15 min. drive to Scandia, so we didn’t
get to bored. I think we were all exited, because you could just
sense it. When we got there, we all pied out and began our way
over to the minutare-golf course. It was great! I especially liked
how they weren’t just regular old holes. They had bumpers, brick
walls, you name it! My favorite of them all was this one that had
bumpers on both sides of the fairway, and was a par 6!
We were having a great time. But you know whenever your
having a lot of fun, something goes wrong? Well, I was the person
all the things going wrong happened to! The thing is, I lost my ball
about three times! One time, on that hole that’s my favorite, (theres
a pond next to it too) I hit the ball right down the center really
hard…SsmmmaaccKK! The ball had curved off course, hit the last
bumper, and flew off the hole, into the water. Sploosh!
You know how I said it was hard to think of my best
Saturday? If anyone askes me that again, I think I’ll know what to
say. I mean, I got to go with my friends, all the wacky holes, and
losing my ball, I don’t think this reigns over al lthe others…I know it
reigns over all the others.
Rubric Score 4
The writer has an interesting
beginning, “Hmm…That’s a hard
one… I think there’s one that
reigns over all”.
They have a strong sense of
paragraphing, with paragraph
breaks coming at appropriate
times.
The events are reasonably well
sequenced with a focus on
relevant facts and details.
The writer makes an attempt at a
restatement conclusion strategy
when he rephrases the beginning
line, “reigns over all”.
Sentences are varied in length
and structure. The dialogue and
sound effects add interest and
reveal the writer’s personality.
The writer’s voice is expressive
with phrases like, “It is only a 15
minute drive to Scandia, so we
didn’t get bored,” or “…We
headed into the wild world of
golfballs.”
Although conventions are not
perfect, they show an effort to
use more than just the usual with
the use of ellipsis periods,
exclamation marks and
parenthesis.