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High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA)
Performance Level Descriptors
Language Arts Literacy
Proficient
Eleventh-grade students performing at the proficient level demonstrate an understanding of purpose and audience as they examine text generated by themselves and by others. Proficient students show an overall comprehension of the text at literal and inferential levels. These students also use prior knowledge, reflection, and/or personal experience to generate original text.
Students at this level are able to distinguish and identify the purpose, main idea, supporting details, and basic patterns of text organization. As active readers, students interact with text to construct meaning, draw inferences from text, and identify literary elements and devices.
Eleventh-grade students who are proficient in writing consistently and effectively address the intended audience and task. They are able to communicate clearly by organizing, developing, and presenting a coherent progression of ideas.
Advanced Proficient
In addition to consistently demonstrating the skills outlined for the proficient student, the advanced proficient student will demonstrate the ability to synthesize and extend meaning.
Students at this level understand organizational structures, identify tone and/or style, and analyze the effects of literary concepts and the effects of literary devices on the reader. The advance proficient student demonstrates critical reflection and analysis of text.
Advance proficient writers exhibit individual writing styles. There is fluidity in the progression of ideas that are supported by relevant and concise details. These students employ rhetorical devices, precise diction, and sentence structure to enhance meaning.
