Anchor papers

GRADES 6–8 ITEM 2 TRAINING SETCopyright © 2014 by the University of Pittsburgh and published under contract with Tennessee State Department of Education byMeasurement Incorporated, 423 Morris Street, Durham, North Carolina, 27701. Testing items licensed to the Tennessee State Department ofEducation. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a databaseor retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Tennessee Department of Education and the University of Pittsburgh.

TRAINING SET DIRECTIONSAfter you have read and reviewed the texts, anchor responses, and annotationsfor this item, you may complete this training set.This item-specific training set was developed to help you practice scoringresponses before you begin to score your students’ work. Unlike the individualtrait anchors, you will review these responses for all four traits. Responses withinthe training set have also been placed in random order, unlike anchor responses.There are five responses in the training set. After reading each response, writedown your score for all four traits (Development, Focus & Organization,Language, and Conventions). There is space available after each response foryou to provide a score. Once you have finished scoring, you may go on to thenext response and repeat this process.You are highly encouraged to use the anchor responses and appropriate rubricsfor this item as you move through the training set and score responses. Keep inmind that your copies of the texts may also help in assessing these trainingresponses.An answer key has been provided on the last page of this training set. Once youhave finished scoring the training set, you may compare your score with the truescore for each response.GRADES 4–5 Page 2 of 10

Training Set: Response #1In “Beyond Thirst: the Global Water Crisis,” author Kathiann M. Kowalski introduces her story tothe readers by telling them how many people do not get water. She states, “Every day, 1.2 billionpeople don’t get enough drinking water for their basis needs,” which means that so many peoplehave to go without their basic things that we get everyday and that there are so many people outthere that do not have what we pretty much take for granted. Author Kowalski talks to the readerabout how scarce water is, that the earth might be 70 percent of water, but 97 percent is theundrinkable sea water and 2/3 of fresh water is in the polar ice caps, so we only have 1 percent offresh water that is actually available to us. On the other hand, even though we think it’s freshwater, some of it cannot be sanitized, so there are many people who have no choice, but to drinkthe dirty water because that is all that’s available to drink. Consequently, that dirty water kills 1.8million kids a year with diarrhea. The author states that girls and women suffer most: “Many girlswho would otherwise be in school are spending hours each day walking to distant sources tocollect water.” Worse, “Girls who do attend school often drop out as teens if schools lackseparate toilets...girls and women risk attack just by going to the bathroom.” What that’s sayingis all boys and girls go into the same bathroom with no stalls and use the bathroom. As for theadults, they struggle to earn enough money to live and when they have to spend their whole day“...fetching water of questionable quality” they could get water-related sicknesses, it cause themto miss work and that causes food shortages because lack of money. Also, another reason as towhy some people don’t get water, there are rich people who get water pumped into their homes.Then there are poor people that end up paying for dirty water from big tank trucks. In the end, sheis telling us how we can save water at home and other places, ask other people to do the sameand “protect this precious resource”. How can we protect out water resources? One way mightbe to not just leave the trash on the side of the road, but instead, bend down andpick it up then throw it in a trash or recycling bin. We could raise money to send to theseContinued on the next page . . . Page 3 of 10GRADES 4–5

Training Set: Response #1countries so they can get the clean water they need. After reading this article, it is easy to see thatthere are so many people in the world with dirty contaminated water. The fact that we sit here atake water as an advantage is sad especially when there are more people somewhere in this worldwho need this water and we can help give it to them!!SCORESDevelopment:Focus & Organization:Language:Conventions:GRADES 4–5 Page 4 of 10

Training Set: Response #2 The key idea of the text is to tell us about the water crisis. The crisis happened in 2008.Now unitl 2015 we actually have to keep 5 liters of water (5 gallons). This flood affected the worldand it’s ecosystem very drastically. It especialy take biodiversity down alot. With al lack of water our sanitation is deadly. Thecontaminated water kills 1.8 million children every year. Parasites, bacteria, and viruses causemany other issues children globally.SCORESDevelopment:Focus & Organization:Language:Conventions:GRADES 4–5 Page 5 of 10

Training Set: Response #3 “Beyond Thirst: The Global Water Crisis” is an article written about the world’s waterissues. It informs us that many countries don’t have access to safe drinking water. The authorintroduces the topic with statistics about the U.S.’s water shortages. Then grabs you withemotional information to illustrate the main idea and elaborates the text with statistics and quotes. The article is introduced by saying, “Most of us think nothing about grabbing a cold glassof water...while North Carolina, Georgia, and California suffer serious droughts.” This is used as areminder to Americans that we take our water resources for granted. While other countries arestruggling to find water to drink, we’re swimming in it. The quote is used to grab your attentionand make you think about your next glass of water. The author illustrates the article using information that grabs your emotions. For example,“Lack of safe water and sanitation is deadly. Contaminated water kills 1.8 million children everyyear with diarrhea.” It is so sad to read that children are dying simply because they were thirstyand took a drink of water. The author goes on to tell you that, “At any moment, nearly half thepeople in developing countries suffer from some water-related sickness....These people know itleads to disease, but there is no other water.” Knowing you are going to get really sick or die justfrom quenching your thirst is horrible! The author tells you that “Girls and women suffer most.Many girls who would otherwise be in school are spending hours each day walking to distantwater sources to collect water.” Girls are dropping out of school, parents are missing work --these people getting sick and dying from contaminated water and spending their days walking toget that water! If we could just get clean water to these developing countries, none of this wouldbe happening. Kowalski elaborates using statistics and quotes. She writes: “Everyday, 1.2 billionpeople don’t get enough safe drinking water for their basic needs. That’s nearly one-sixth of theworld’s people...roughly 2.6 billion people who lack safe sanitation.” This really helps you to seehow serious the problem is. She gives you another example of how serious this problem is:“While water covers 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, 97 percent is undrinkable seawater.With two-thirds of all freshwater locked in polar ice-caps, only 1 percent of the world’s water ispotentially available for people.” These statistics are incredible and truly show how much waterwe really don’t have and how we here in the U.S. really need to help other countries.Continued on next page . . . Page 6 of 10GRADES 4–5

Training Set: Response #3 The author, Kathiann Kowalski does a great job introducing and elaborating on the topicof unsafe water by appealing to emotions and pointing out strong statistics. No one should haveto “think” about grabbing that glass of water.SCORESDevelopment:Focus & Organization:Language:Conventions:GRADES 4–5 Page 7 of 10

Training Set: Response #4 Do you drink lots of water? In some country and places people don’t have enoff water.This is a enomous problem for the world. First, people don’t have clean water. For example, 1.2 billion people don’t get enough safewater to drink. Also, more than a third roughly 2.6 billon people lack safe sanitation, acorrding toKathiann M. Kowalski pargragh 2. Next, Lack of safe drink water is deadly. For example contaminated water kills 1.8 millonchildern every year with diarrhea. Furthmore, nearly half the people in developing countriessuffer from some water – related sickness, lines 26 and 28 say. Most Importly, water shortages effect food supplies. For example, it takes for a family offour a Olympic size swimming pool to have enof water. Not enough water can casue politcal andeconomic conflicts. We all need lots of water. People don’t have enough water all over the world. This is ahuge problem for the world.SCORESDevelopment:Focus & Organization:Language:Conventions:GRADES 4–5 Page 8 of 10

Training Set: Response #5 Have you ever grabed a glass of water? Did you drink it all, or did you waste it? In my oppinion you should have drunk it because that is wasting water. We needed thatwater to be able to be active or do anything. Your body is mostley made up of water, thats why you need to drink at least 20 litters ofwater a day. Some people only drink mabe 3 glasses of water a day, but as long as you don’twaste it you will be able to have water every day. Some people only get a sip of water, so mabewe shold stop wasting water that they could use because in some devloping countries they don’teven have water to drink. It is because they are leaving the water on, and that is using up thereclean water. So next time they fill their cup up with water they need to make sure it is clean andthat their not drinking water that they can get hurt by drinking it.SCORESDevelopment:Focus & Organization:Language:Conventions:GRADES 4–5 Page 9 of 10

Training Set: Key Training Set: Response #1: o Development: 3 o Focus and Organization: 3 o Language: 3 o Conventions: 3 Training Set: Response #2: o Development: 1 o Focus and Organization: 1 o Language: 1 o Conventions: 1 Training Set: Response #3: o Development: 4 o Focus and Organization: 4 o Language: 4 o Conventions: 4 Training Set: Response #4: o Development: 2 o Focus and Organization: 2 o Language: 2 o Conventions: 2 Training Set: Response #5: o Development: 1 o Focus and Organization: 2 o Language: 2 o Conventions: 1GRADES 4–5 Page 10 of 10