7th Grade Personal Narrative Rubric (Evaluation for Essay)

Personal Narrative/Descriptive Writing Rubric

	Advanced—4	Proficient—3	Needs Improvement—2	Not Yet—1
Content
Lead	Strong lead makes the reader want to find out more	Good lead but could be altered though the reader still wants to continue	Lead is unremarkable and needs some work	Lead is unimaginative or too obvious and needs to be rewritten
Idea Development	Length of paper is appropriate and flows smoothly from one idea to the next	A few instances of clutter and/or not enough elaboration, but for the most part flows evenly	Good ideas but at times overshadowed by too much and/or too simplistic writing making paper seem choppy	Paper is far too long/short and loses focus or is boring because of overwriting and or no elaboration
Organization	Paper has excellent structure and is well organized	Paper has structure and organization though lacks unity because of occasional confusing details	Paper has some structure evident but at times is hard to follow or is not well organized	Paper’s structure is greatly lacking, interfering with reader’s ability to understand piece
Voice	Author’s voice is clearly evident and piece is thoughtful and well-written in a sophisticated and unique style	Author’s voice and personality is evident and effort was clearly put into the piece making piece enjoyable to read	Author’s voice is developing and shows some effort but at times the piece needs more work	Author’s voice is not evident and the entire story needs more work
Word Choice	Paper uses rich and sophisticated word choice and varied language throughout	Paper uses good word choice and some varied wording	Paper has simplistic word choice and some words are at times repetitive	Paper has too simplistic word choice and is far too repetitive
Sensory Details	Paper is rich in sensory details and shows rather than tells creating a vivid picture without overloading the reader	Paper has some strong sensory details making it enjoyable to read but there may be too few or not enough details, at times telling rather than showing	Paper has too few sensory details or far too many so the piece mainly tells rather than shows or use clichés causing reader to lose interest	Paper is lacking in sensory details and tells rather than shows using empty words and too many clichés
Closing	The final sentences clinch the piece well leaving the reader completely satisfied	The ending is good but does not fully clinch the paper, leaving the reader wanting more	The ending is too simple—it doesn’t fit the flow of the story or contains weak language leaving the reader confused	There is no real ending leaving the reader unsatisfied
	`Advanced—4	Proficient—3	Needs Improvement—2	Not Yet—1
Mechanics
Sentence Structure	Paper is well written using a variety of simple and complex sentence structures creating a smooth rhythm to the piece	Papers has a few sentence errors and/or is lacking in variety or complexity	Paper is beginning to be difficult to understand as there are many poorly constructed sentences or fragments	Paper is difficult to read because of too simplistic sentence structure and/or many fragments
Paragraph Placement	Strong paragraph placement throughout paper	Paragraphs are generally appropriate throughout though at times are too long and/or short	Paragraphs are only somewhat evident throughout paper	Paragraph placement is almost entirely or lacking all together
Conventions—spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization	Paper is proofread well with only 1 or 2 errors	Paper has between 3 to 5 errors	Paper has between 6 to 8 errors as proofreading was not done well	Paper has more than 9 errors and shows little to no evidence of proofreading
Verb Tense	Verb tense remains consistent throughout	Verb tense is mainly consistent, though sometimes moves from past to present	Verb tenses are inconsistent throughout, affecting reader’s understanding of paper	Verb tenses are so inconsistent, paper is difficult to understand

Comments:

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