Murfreesboro City Schools Developmental Writing Standards

Murfreesboro City Schools uses this rubric to judge the quality of growth in young writers.  

♣Writing is drawing at this stage

♣Gaining more control over small muscles in hands

♣“Story” can be told with child’s oral language

♣Child attempts to write in scribbles and patterns

♣Oral stories and pictures become more elaborate

♣Child begins to make connection between written symbols and story

♣Beginning to use real and letter-like letters in writing

♣Child may copy letters or words

♣May label parts of picture

♣Beginning to use inventive/temporary spelling

♣Oral story often incorporates the random letters copied

♣Adds name to writings

♣Usually writes in all capital letters

♣Child begins to make letter/sound connection

♣Child has a story concept and tells what story is

♣May begin to separate words with spaces

♣Usually uses consonants only when using inventive spelling

“Crane lifting a house”

Following Stage D, a child may bypass one or more of the next stages.

♣Begins to use lower case letters

♣Uses upper case letters appropriately

♣Exploring punctuation

♣Spells most high frequency words correctly, but still uses inventive spelling for the harder words

♣Is building fluency

•       Has little awareness of audience

♣Can write longer stories

♣Applying conventions of writing (capitals & punctuation)

♣Begins to develop a sense of topic

♣Simple word choice and sentence patterns

♣Should begin self-evaluating her writing

♣Using better handwriting (shows greater control of small muscles)

♣Uses correct conventions of writing (capitals & punctuation)

♣Uses correct spelling almost exclusively

♣Gaining a sense of audience

♣Minimal variety of vocabulary and sentence patterns

♣Writing for a variety of purposes

♣Clear and developed topic

♣Clear plan with beginning, middle, and end

♣Written for an audience

♣Experiments with language and sentence patterns

♣Beginning to use the six traits of writing (organization, ideas & content, conventions, sentence fluency, voice, and word choice)

♣Well-developed topic

♣Organization sustains the writer’s purpose

♣Engages the reader

♣Effective use of varied language and sentence patterns

♣Surface errors do not interfere with meaning

♣Implementing six traits of writing (organization, ideas & content, conventions, sentence fluency, voice, and word choice)

Stage 6:  The Extending Writer

♣Topic fully elaborated with rich details.  Organization sustains writer’s purpose and moves the reader through the piece

♣Engages and sustains reader’s interest

♣Effective use of varied sentence patterns and creative and novel use of language

♣Surface errors do not interfere with meaning

♣Consistently uses six traits of writing  (organization, ideas & content, conventions, sentence fluency, voice, and word choice)