SECONDARY ANALYTICAL WRITING RUBRIC LANGUAGE/CONVENTIONS DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS ORGANIZATION/PROGRESSION ACCOMPLISHED SATISFACTORY BASIC LIMITED  appropriate organizing structure and well‐ suited strategies for purpose of prompt  strong and clear thesis/controlling idea  all ideas strongly support thesis/controlling idea and are focused on textual analysis  coherent and unified  consistently logical and well‐ controlled progression of ideas  meaningful transitions between sentences and paragraphs show relationships among ideas  easy to follow  mostly appropriate organizing structure and strategies are generally suited for purpose of prompt  clear thesis/controlling idea  most ideas support thesis/controlling idea and are focused on textual analysis  coherent but not always unified  generally logical and well‐controlled progression of ideas  most transitions between sentences and paragraphs are meaningful and show relationships among ideas  evident but possibly inappropriate organizing structure with strategies that are only somewhat suited for purpose of prompt  weak or unclear thesis/controlling idea  generally ideas relate to the thesis/controlling idea and textual analysis but may include irrelevant information  weak coherence and focus  illogical and uncontrolled progression of ideas may be repetitive or wordy and disrupt flow  weak or perfunctory transitions between sentences/paragraphs cause weak relationships between ideas  effective, credible, and compelling development  explicit, insightful, and clear analytical interpretations of the text  relevant, well‐chosen textual evidence with sufficient depth  smoothly integrated textual evidence  thoughtful and engaging  thorough understanding of writing task  sufficient and largely convincing development  explicit and thoughtful analytical interpretations of the text that goes beyond a literal interpretation of the text  relevant, accurate textual evidence with some depth that sometimes lacks strength and completeness  somewhat thoughtful  original and not formulaic  good understanding of writing task  minimal and superficial development  literal and obvious analytical interpretations of the text  missing, irrelevant, or inaccurate textual evidence  too brief or partially developed ideas that do not always link to textual evidence  little thoughtfulness  sometimes formulaic  limited understanding of writing task  inappropriate organizing structure with strategies only marginally suited or not evident at all for purpose of prompt causing lack of clarity and direction  missing, unclear, or illogical thesis/controlling idea  generally ideas relate to the textual analysis but may include extraneous information, fail to maintain focus, or shift abruptly between ideas  weak progression of ideas may be repetitive or wordy and cause serious disruptions in flow  lack of transitions between sentences/paragraphs cause random and illogical connections between ideas making one or more parts unclear  weak and ineffective development  unclear, simplistic, or inappropriate analytical interpretations of the text  little, if any, textual evidence  sometimes only summarizes the text without linking to an interpretation  vague, insufficient, or inappropriate development of ideas  insubstantial, vague, confused and/or only weakly linked to prompt  lack of understanding of writing task
 purposeful, precise word choice suggests keen awareness of writing purpose and contributes to quality/clarity  appropriate tone for the writing task  purposeful, varied, and well‐controlled sentences with consistent command of sentence boundaries  consistent command of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and usage conventions  minor errors may be evident but do not detract from fluency or clarity  mostly clear and specific word choice suggests awareness of writing purpose and usually contributes to quality/clarity  appropriate tone for the writing task  varied and adequately controlled sentences with adequate command of sentence boundaries  adequate command of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and usage conventions  some errors may be evident but create few (if any) disruptions in fluency or clarity  general and imprecise word choice suggests basic awareness of writing purpose and does not contribute to quality/clarity  inappropriate tone for the writing task  awkward and only somewhat controlled sentences with only partial command of sentence boundaries  partial command of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and usage conventions  some distracting errors may be evident and create minor disruptions in fluency or clarity  vague and limited word choice suggests little or no awareness of writing purpose and may impede quality/clarity  inappropriate tone for the writing task  simplistic, awkward, and uncontrolled sentences with little or no command of sentence boundaries  little or no command of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and usage conventions  serious and persistent errors create minor disruptions in fluency and sometimes distort meaning ©2016, TCMPC 01/13/17 Adapted from STAAR® Writing Rubrics (Texas Education Agency) Page 1 of 1