Gloss: Harp Seals (title) Harp seals live in the Arctic. Their favorite meal is fish.  When they are born they have yellow fur.  About 1 day old they turn to clear white.  In two months they molt and their fur will turn blubberish gray.  Their fur covers blubber.  When they are born they are a little smaller than a chicken.  But two week old babies are a little bigger than a chicken.  When they are all grown up they are the size of two eagle.  They fit better in the wild.

Notes: The student writes a description of a wild animal.



Ideas and Content:  The student carefully plans out his or her writing using a web and numbering the ideas he or she wants to include.  The piece clearly addresses the prompt by giving a description of an animal and facts about it. 

Organization and Focus:  The student stays focused on describing harp seals and is adept at combining ideas with phrases such as “In two months time…” and “When they are all grown…” The last sentence though a bit awkward in its construction, is an adequate concluding sentence for an informational piece.

Style:  The student uses vivid text such as “clear white” and “a little smaller than a chicken” to describe the harp seal.  The sentences flow together nicely and display the student’s interest in and knowledge of the seals.

Conventions: Though the last sentence is missing a capital letter and a period, the student shows a solid understanding of punctuation and capitalization throughout the rest of the paper.  The writing is legible, but some letters such as lower case r, v, and n are not clearly distinguishable in words such as “blubber,“ “chicken,” “covers,”  and “fur” because they are not formed correctly.  

Gloss: Cat (title)  I have a cat.  Its black and white.  My cat plays with me.  My cat is fat.  It has a tail.  Its furry.  My cat is nice.  My cat is fun to play with.

Notes: The student writes a description of his or her own pet.



Ideas and Content:  The student has carefully planned his or her paper by drawing a detailed picture and completing a web.  All of the ideas in the web are included in the writing.  The writing is lacking, however, in its originality because the same description could likely be written by any other student with a black and white cat (“fat, has a tail, furry, nice”).

Organization and Focus:  The student stays focused on writing about his or her cat, but his or her ideas are not connected and similar ideas are repeated.  The student does not connect ideas such as how the cat looks, “it is black and white” and “it has a tail” together  or combine sentences about what the cat does:, “My cat plays with me” and “My cat is fun to play with.” 

Style:  The writing seems repetitive with many sentences that begin  with  “Its,” or “My” and made up of four words.  The writer uses some adjectives such as “black and white” and “furry,” but could make the text more vivid by describing what the cat likes to play or why the cat is nice. 

Conventions:  The student correctly uses lower case letters throughout the writing, but does not appear to understand capitalization at the beginning of sentences except for the first word “I.”  Though the student has some printing mixed with cursive, the letters are clear and easy to read. 

Gloss: Tiger (title)  A tiger lives in the wild.  It has orange and white fur.  It is a carnivore.  It can get up to 6 1/2 feet tall standing.  They can run up to 60 miles per hour.  They can jump 4 feet. When a baby tiger is born, the mom has to get the baby some food.  But if she is gone too long her baby might die.

Notes: The student writes a description of a wild animal.



Ideas and Content:  The student includes specific details that describe a tiger (its color, type of diet, size, speed, jumping ability, and infancy).

Organization and Focus:  Though the student does not use transitions between the sentences until the end of the paper, the writing is reasonably organized and does not repeat ideas or stray from the topic.  Because the writing style changes at the end of the paper, the ending seems a little abrupt. 

Style:  The ideas presented include specific vocabulary “carnivore,” “6 ½ feet standing,” “60 miles an hour,” to make for vivid text.   The student varies sentence lengths and patterns as appropriate to informational text.  He or she takes some risks, attempting more difficult sentence constructions (“When a baby tiger is born...” ).

Conventions:  The student demonstrates a solid understanding of second grade language conventions.

Gloss: The Cats (title) Once upon a time there were three cats.  Their names were Johnny, Natalie, and Josh.  They live in a big house and there favorite food was cat food.  And they always love their owners.  And one day they saw a mean dog.  Then the cat said “Meow, meow, meow” and ran away.  And then the dog said, “come back, I’m not going to hurt you.  And then the cats came.  And they were best friends.

Notes: The student writes a story about cats.



Ideas and Content:  The format of the paper should be descriptive and informational, not a narrative like the student has written.  However, what the student has written is a complete story that includes details about the three cats (where they live, what they eat, and what they did), and so he or she receives credit for this.

Organization and Focus:  The paper is focused on the three cats and organized with a title (The Cats) and a conclusion (“and they were best friends”) but has some problems with sequencing because everything is connected with “and.”

Style:  The student attempts to add description to the writing by using adjectives (“mean dog,” “big house,” “cat food,” “ best friends”) but they do not really make the text come alive.  The writer could add more colorful descriptors and exclamation points within quotation marks to give the text more style.   

Conventions:  Most of the student ‘s spelling errors involve tense issues, inflectional endings, or homophones (“they live” instead of “they lived,” “there name were” instead of “their names were.” ) The student capitalizes the first word in the story, the word “I’m,” and the names of the cats, but does not capitalize the first words of sentences, which shows a partial understanding of capitalization.

Gloss: About fish (title) I know a lot of fish because I have four fish at home.  We had fifteen fish, but they die.  It is a good pet you can have.  Some fish live in tanks.  Some can live in oceans?  If you feed them a lot they will die.  Some fish are orange and black!  Some fish are really big and small.  My biggest fish is about 4 inches.  My smallest fish is about 3 inches.  My brothers or me feed them in the morning before we leave to the bus.  Every time I ask my brother, “Have you fed the fish?” and his answer is always, “NO!”  I said, “Why don’t you feed them at least one day!”  And we also feed them at 8 o’clock at night.  My fishes color are two are orange and one is silver, one is white.  Fishes skin is out of scales.  You have to take care of them or they will die.  They will also die if you clean a fish tank if you put a lot of soap in it because when they eat food they might eat the soap too.  That is why you have to take care of them.  And they will live if you take care of them.

Notes: The student writes a lengthy paper about her pet in a conversational tone.



Ideas and Content:   The student writes a lot and has many ideas.  Many details, such as what will happen if you put soap in the water, are included.    

Organization and Focus: Though the paper is clearly about fish, it loses focus because the student switches back and forth, without a clear pattern, between talking about his or her own fish and fish in general.  The student also strays further from the topic by talking about his or her brother’s poor pet care skills.  There is some attempt to organize similar ideas “My biggest fish is 4 inches.  My smallest fish is about 3 inches,” but other ideas are scattered through the paper and feel unconnected .  The order of words is sometimes confusing because some words are missing and some do not make sense together such as “Some fish are really big and small.” 

Style: The tone of this paper is somewhat conversational which is not appropriate for the purpose of an informational book on animals. 

Conventions:  The student is not consistent in his or her capitalization of “I,” and the first words of sentences.  He or she has difficulty spelling some high frequency words such as “orange,”” morning,” “before,” “ also,” etc.  Most short and long vowel words such as “fish,” “might,” “feed,” “die,”  “home,” “take,” “soap,” and “eat” are spelled correctly.