- FOCUS � Does the paper establish and maintain focus throughout the narrative as determined by the prompt? Do all the details relate to the prompt? Is there a clear sense of story developed?
- ORGANIZATION � Does the story demonstrate a sequenced and logical progression of ideas? Is there a clear beginning, middle, and end?
- SUPPORT AND ELABORATION � Are the details relevant to the prompt? Do they move the story along?
- STYLE � Are the words precise, purposeful, and appropriate to the topic? Is there a variety of sentence styles? Do they exhibit fluency?
When trying to decide what convention score to give a paper, keep the following in mind. The more times you answer yes to the following questions, the weaker the paper must be.
- SENTENCE FORMATION � Are there run-ons, fragments, or phrases that interfered with the meaning?
- USAGE � Are there errors in agreement or tense? Are words used incorrectly to their standard meaning?
- MECHANICS � Is there incorrect capitalization? Is there incorrect punctuation? Are common words misspelled?
Please keep in mind, that deciding on a score is not an easy task. Everyone has his or her own beliefs and opinions as to what makes creative writing successful. It is my hope that by sharing these papers with you, you will be able to analyze the features of effective writing more critically.
Also, the score you give needs to reflect the entire story. Don�t let one or two small mistakes interfere with the overall score.