I. College Level Expectations in English Language Arts
C. College Placement - Writing
I.C3) Sample Exemplar, Question, Rubric, and Student Response
UMass-Lowell
Placement Writing for Students Exemplar
COMMENTS:1. The writer has a clear position on the topic. thesis and explicitly takes a position on the topic.
2.The writer uses clear topic
sentences to explain the
purpose of each ¶.
3. The writer develops the ¶
with a relevant, specific
example.
4. While the referent of "it" is
unclear, this minor error
(along with a number of
others in this essay) would
not cause the essay to fail.
We expect to see some minor errors on the sentence
level, but a passing essay
will always be clear and
readable. If an essay is
confusing to the readers,
it will not pass.
5. The word "clothes"
is misspelled "cloths." A few small errors
might not cause the essay to
fail, but an accumulation of
small errors demonstrates
a lack of control.
6. The writer avoids basic
usage errors, such as confusing their, there and
they're; to and too; or its
and it's.
7. The writer does more than
just define each term and
give an example of each.
The argument shows a bit of
development.
8. The writer shows good
unity by concluding the
argument firmly and reasserts
the thesis.
In general, the essay is a
little repetitive, but our
readers understand that it
was written under pressure.
While it is not perfect, it
shows all of the things that
we listed in our letter to you
We expect that a student
writing at this level will
be successful in College
Writing I. / While the ideas of "happiness" and "success" seem related at first glance, I believe they are two separate categories and represent two different ways of looking at the world.1 First of all, happiness is a feeling, which success is not. A person doesn't need to be successful to be happy, because a wide variety of things can make a person feel happy, and those things might not be the same from person to person. Success isn't an emotion; it's a judgment of its own kind. To say a person is successful or unsuccessful is a way of evaluating that person, and deciding whether they measure up to a standard. It's important to see the difference between those two things, or you could end up missing out on happiness.
Happiness can come from a sense of personal accomplishment or achievement, which is why happiness and success are easily confused. It feels really good to reach a goal, especially if you've set a goal that is meaningful to you.2 For example, in my high school, there is a history teacher that everyone thinks is a tough grader. Mr. Anderson teaches a European history class that is not required, and usually only the smartest students take that class because of its reputation for being difficult.3 I'm not at the very top of my class, but I liked the other history classes that I'd taken, so I was considering signing up for it.4 I had a hard time deciding. I didn't want to get a bad grade, but a friend of mine who took that class last year gave me good advice. She told me that I shouldn't worry about it, because the class would be good, so I signed up for it. At the start of the year, Mr. Anderson told us how much he expected from us, and I thought about switching to another class because it seemed impossible. I got a couple of bad quiz grades, but I stayed for extra help and my grades started to get better. Right now, I have a B in that class, and I'm very happy with that. This kind of happiness is based on how I feel about myself. I tried to do something that was difficult, and even though some people might not think of a B as a success, I'm happy with it. I know how hard I worked to get it, and that makes me feel like a success.
Success is too often confused with gratification. It's easy to see how this happens. We live in a world that tells us that it's important to be rich and that it's important to have a lot of things that demonstrate your wealth, like designer cloths5 or an expensive sports car. Everywhere you look, on TV, in magazines and in newspapers, there are pictures of rich and famous people. Being rich and being famous are goals that people set because of greed for material possessions. We all know examples of people who "make it big" but are very unhappy. The comedian Dave Chappelle got his own TV show and became famous and rich. Everyone considered him to be a successful person, but underneath he was very unhappy. In fact, he was so unhappy that he had to stop making his show because he had a nervous breakdown from the pressure of being a success. Dave Chappelle is a classic example of how being successful is different from being happy. He had attained success by society's standards, but that couldn't make him happy. People who think that having all of the things that you want is the same as being happy are confused. They're6 overly interested in what other people think of them, and want to impress everyone, but it's difficult to control other people's opinions, and so it's not a good idea to try to base your happiness on what other people think of as success.
If society was less materialistic, we might see that there are other ways to think of success.7 If a person was kind and gentle, we could think of that as success, but we don't. If a person went to school or work every day and tried his best, even if his grades weren't.
If society was less materialistic, we might see that there are other ways to think of success.7 If a person was kind and gentle, we could think of that as success, but we don't. If a person went to school or work every day and tried his best, even if his grades weren't great or he didn't make a lot of money, we could consider that person a success, and we probably should. Maybe if we started to think of success differently, there would be more times when success and happiness would be the same thing. We focus too much on power and money and on having things, and I think that is keeping a lot of people from being happy.
Once you stop to consider the difference between happiness and success, it becomes clear that while they might sometimes happen together, those two ideas are not necessarily connected.8 You might have a humble job that doesn't have much prestige, but you might enjoy it. Or, you might not like your job that much, but you might have a great life at home that makes you happy. On the other hand, you might have an impressive career that gives you a lot of money and respect, but you might hate your work, or you might be unhappy with your life outside of work. If you look at the way things are in society, it is obvious that happiness and success get confused all the time. Happiness is a feeling that exists inside a person; success is too often a measurement that is based on what other people think of us. You have to know the difference if you want to be happy, and being happy with yourself is a kind of success that everyone should be able to experience.
UMass- Lowell
Placement Writing Scoring Guide
Essays falling into College Writing I
· Thoughtful and detailed content responsive to the prompt
Demonstrate solid comprehension of the passage (some portions of the passage might go
unaddressed, or minor misinterpretations which do not interfere with the student's overall comprehension of the passage might be present). Demonstrate an understanding of the rhetorical tasks of the prompt (some analysis or
argument might be weak or implicit, but the essay should reflect an awareness of the task)
Provide examples as indicated in the prompt (appropriately chosen and developed)
Develop the essay with detail and specificity
Provide some insight into the student's perspective on the topic
· Strong focus, essay structure and organization
Employ a thesis (in some cases, the thesis might be implied rather than explicit)
Demonstrate sustained unity (reflect a protracted consideration of the material and are of
acceptable length with a minimum of five paragraphs)
Reflect strong paragraph structure (use topic sentences and organize coherent paragraphs
around a single idea)
Include an introduction and a conclusion (though these might be somewhat redundant)
Attempt clear and logical transitions between ideas
· Proper grammar and use of Standard English
Demonstrate a solid grasp of sentence structure (though one or two errors in this category might be present)
Employ a variety of sentence structures
Might include few major grammatical errors (though some might be present, they are infrequent)
Might have a number of minor errors, including spelling (persistent error demonstrating a lack of conceptual understanding of grammar principles should not be present)
· Appropriate college-level vocabulary and usage
Use appropriately sophisticated vocabulary with accuracy
Show control over tone and awareness of audience
Refrain from the use of conversational, slang, or nonstandard English
Essays failing into College Writing A-
· Thoughtful and detailed content responsive to the prompt
Demonstrate a significant misinterpretation of the passage
Fail to address the rhetorical tasks as directed (essay might be presented in a rhetorical mode
other than what is specified, e.g. student has written a narrative rather than an argument)
Fail to provide examples as indicated in the prompt (might lack specific examples, include
irrelevant examples, or include significantly underdeveloped examples)
Contain little development, might be repetitive or consistently vague
Demonstrate a lack of critical thinking about the topic
· Strong focus, essay structure and organization
Lack a thesis, or have a weak or irrelevant thesis
Lack unity
Demonstrate incoherence or lack of development within paragraphs
Employ excessive repetition in structure
Move unpredictably or illogically between ideas
· Proper grammar and use of Standard English
Demonstrate poor comprehension of basic sentence structure (include multiple fragments, run-ons, or mixed constructions)
Demonstrate a lack of variety in sentence structure (few complex sentences, lack of coordination and subordination)
Present significant grammatical error (may have a number of various, minor errors or may have major, persistent errors)
· Appropriate college-level vocabulary and usage
Repeatedly misuse words
Employ a limited or simplistic vocabulary
Fail to make a distinction between academic and informal English
Placement tests are scored holistically into one of our four first-semester classes:
College Writing A (preparatory to College Writing I, bears three credits, but does not
satisfy any part of the University's six-credit writing requirement)
College Writing I (standard placement, bears three credits and satisfies half of the
University's six-credit writing requirement)
College Writing A International (preparatory to College Writing I International, special
focus on concepts and editing relevant to ESL learners, bears three credits, but does not satisfy any part of the University's six-credit writing requirement)
College Writing I International (equivalent to College Writing I, special focus on concepts
and editing relevant to ESL learners, bears three credits and satisfies half of the
University's six-credit writing requirement)
UMass- Lowell
Pre-Enrollment Writing Assessment
You will have 50 minutes to complete your essay. Please take a few minutes to plan out your essay and to jot down a few notes, and leave a few minutes at the end to proofread and edit your essay. Write as much as you can in the time allotted. Please use ink, and make your writing legible. Illegible essays will not be scored.
There are two essay options; please read the main passage and both of the essay options, then choose ONE option for your essay. Label your essay "option one" or "option two."
Here are the criteria we will use to evaluate your writing:
§ Thoughtful and detailed content responsive to the prompt
§ Strong focus, essay structure and organization
§ Proper grammar and use of Standard English
§ Appropriate college-level vocabulary and usage
First, read this passage:
In The Last American Man, author Elizabeth Gilbert poses some difficult questions about the nature of contemporary society. Among other things, she wonders and hypothesizes about how young people struggle to become adults, and the role of nature in defining an individual's identity:
What happens to young people in a society that has lost all trace of ritual? Because adolescence is a transitional period, it is an inherently perilous journey. But culture and ritual are supposed to protect us through the transitions of life, holding us in safety during danger and answering confusing questions about identity and change, in order to keep us from getting separated from the community during our hardest personal journeys.
In more primitive societies, a boy might go through an entire year of initiation rites to usher him into manhood. He might endure ritual scarification or rigorous tests of endurance, or he might be sent away from the community for a period of meditation and solitude, after which he would return to the fold and be seen by all as a changed being. He will have moved safely from boyhood to manhood, and he will know exactly when that happened and what is now expected of him, because his role is so clearly codified1. (203)