Smarter Balanced Explanatory Performance Task Writing Rubric (Grades 6-11)
The SBAC Smarter Balanced Explanatory Performance Task Writing Rubric (Grades 6-11) scored out of 10 points across 3 criteria, for informational, explanatory writing at grades 6-11. Published by Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.
3 pages, US Letter, black and white. Free, no account, no email. Includes every performance level and a blank scoring sheet.
How it is scored
- Organization/Purpose4 pts · 4 levels
- Evidence/Elaboration4 pts · 4 levels
- Conventions2 pts · 3 levels
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The full rubric
Organization/Purpose · 4 points
4 points
The response has a clear and effective organizational structure, creating a sense of unity and completeness. The organization is fully sustained between and within paragraphs. The response is consistently and purposefully focused: thesis/controlling idea of a topic is clearly communicated, and the focus is strongly maintained for the purpose and audience; consistent use of a variety of transitional strategies to clarify the relationships between and among ideas; effective introduction and conclusion; logical progression of ideas from beginning to end; strong connections between and among ideas with some syntactic variety.
3 points
The response has an evident organizational structure and a sense of completeness. Though there may be minor flaws, they do not interfere with the overall coherence. The organization is adequately sustained between and within paragraphs. The response is generally focused: thesis/controlling idea of a topic is clear, and the focus is mostly maintained for the purpose and audience; adequate use of transitional strategies with some variety to clarify the relationships between and among ideas; adequate introduction and conclusion; adequate progression of ideas from beginning to end; adequate connections between and among ideas.
2 points
The response has an inconsistent organizational structure. Some flaws are evident, and some ideas may be loosely connected. The organization is somewhat sustained between and within paragraphs. The response may have a minor drift in focus: thesis/controlling idea of a topic may be somewhat unclear, or the focus may be insufficiently sustained for the purpose and/or audience; inconsistent use of transitional strategies and/or little variety; introduction or conclusion, if present, may be weak; uneven progression of ideas from beginning to end; and/or formulaic; inconsistent or unclear connections between and among ideas.
1 point
The response has little or no discernible organizational structure. The response may be related to the topic but may provide little or no focus: thesis/controlling idea may be confusing or ambiguous; response may be too brief or the focus may drift from the purpose and/or audience; few or no transitional strategies are evident; introduction and/or conclusion may be missing; frequent extraneous ideas may be evident; ideas may be randomly ordered or have an unclear progression.
Evidence/Elaboration · 4 points
4 points
The response provides thorough elaboration of the support/evidence for the thesis/controlling idea that includes the effective use of source material. The response clearly and effectively develops ideas, using precise language: comprehensive evidence (facts and details) from the source material is integrated, relevant, and specific; clear citations or attribution to source material; effective use of a variety of elaborative techniques*; vocabulary is clearly appropriate for the audience and purpose; effective, appropriate style enhances content.
3 points
The response provides adequate elaboration of the support/evidence for the thesis/controlling idea that includes the use of source material. The response adequately develops ideas, employing a mix of precise and more general language: adequate evidence (facts and details) from the source material is integrated and relevant, yet may be general; adequate use of citations or attribution to source material; adequate use of some elaborative techniques*; vocabulary is generally appropriate for the audience and purpose; generally appropriate style is evident.
2 points
The response provides uneven, cursory elaboration of the support/evidence for the thesis/controlling idea that includes uneven or limited use of source material. The response develops ideas unevenly, using simplistic language: some evidence (facts and details) from the source material may be weakly integrated, imprecise, repetitive, vague, and/or copied; weak use of citations or attribution to source material; weak or uneven use of elaborative techniques*; development may consist primarily of source summary; vocabulary use is uneven or somewhat ineffective for the audience and purpose; inconsistent or weak attempt to create appropriate style.
1 point
The response provides minimal elaboration of the support/evidence for the thesis/controlling idea that includes little or no use of source material. The response is vague, lacks clarity, or is confusing: evidence (facts and details) from the source material is minimal, irrelevant, absent, incorrectly used, or predominantly copied; insufficient use of citations or attribution to source material; minimal, if any, use of elaborative techniques*; vocabulary is limited or ineffective for the audience and purpose; little or no evidence of appropriate style.
Conventions · 2 points
2 points
The response demonstrates an adequate command of conventions: adequate use of correct sentence formation, punctuation, capitalization, grammar usage, and spelling.
1 point
The response demonstrates a partial command of conventions: limited use of correct sentence formation, punctuation, capitalization, grammar usage, and spelling.
0 points
The response demonstrates little or no command of conventions: infrequent use of correct sentence formation, punctuation, capitalization, grammar usage, and spelling.
This rubric applied to a real essay
Below is a sample essay scored against the rubric above, shown the way it looks inside the grader. The marks, the scores and every comment are the grader’s own output, not written by hand for this page. It scored 7 out of 10.
The essay is written for this page, at roughly a B grade so both the strengths and the weaknesses are worth seeing. It is not a real student’s work.
The prompt
Write an essay explaining how streaming changed the way music is made and sold. Use specific examples to develop your explanation.
Under the older model, revenue arrived when someone bought an album. Under streaming, revenue arrives per play, and on most services a play only counts after roughly thirty seconds. That single rule reshaped song structure. Long instrumental introductions became a liability, because every second before the thirty-second mark is a second in which a listener might skip and the artist earns nothing.2 Songs now tend to reach the hook within the first fifteen seconds.3
Concert tickets have also become much more expensive in the last ten years, and many fans complain about fees.5 Some artists have started selling tickets directly to avoid this.
Your whole class, marked like this
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How it scored, criterion by criterion
The essay opens with a clear, purposeful thesis and closes with a strong concluding sentence that echoes it, giving the piece a real sense of completeness. Transitions like 'Streaming also changed' and 'The through-line is' show intentional connective work. However, two middle paragraphs — the one on playlists and the one on concert tickets — break the sustained focus: the concert-ticket paragraph in particular drifts away from the controlling idea about how streaming changed music creation, which prevents the essay from earning the top level.
The essay's strongest paragraph — on the thirty-second rule and song structure — is genuinely well-developed, with a specific mechanism, a concrete consequence, and precise language. But the remaining body paragraphs are thin and repetitive: the playlist paragraph restates the same vague point three times without a single specific example, the concert-ticket paragraph introduces an off-topic idea with no elaboration, and the singles paragraph is almost entirely circular. No source material is cited anywhere, and the prompt explicitly asks for specific examples, which are largely absent beyond the thirty-second detail.
The essay is free of spelling errors, capitalization mistakes, and sentence fragments. The one notable convention issue is a comma splice in the final sentence ('The through-line is that a payment rule became a creative rule, when the money arrives thirty seconds in…'), but this is an isolated lapse in an otherwise clean piece. Overall, conventions are adequately controlled.
What the student was told to fix
- Replace vague, repetitive sentences in the playlist and singles paragraphs with at least one specific, named example each
- Cut or reframe the concert-ticket paragraph so every body paragraph connects directly to the streaming-and-music-creation argument
- Cite or attribute source material as the prompt requires — name artists, songs, platforms, or data points to support each claim
- Fix the comma splice in the final sentence (replace the comma before 'when' with a colon or dash)
Graded on 2026-08-12. A teacher can change any score before it goes back to the student.
Source
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Official document. Rubrics are revised periodically, so check the source before using this for a graded assessment.
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