Scoring Methods, Charts, and Checklists
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| Writing | Reading, Listening, and Viewing | Extending Understanding | Speaking |

The language arts literacy component of the ESPA, GEPA, and HSPA offers a variety of multiple-choice, open-ended items, and performance-based tasks. The differences in these activities demand varying scoring methods that reflect the distinctive qualities of the respective types of tasks students will encounter.

Writing
The familiar 0-6 point scale, the Registered Holistic Scoring Rubric, will be used to score the sustained writing tasks. As in the past, students will have a copy of the Writer's Checklist to use as a resource while they write.  This rubric emphasizes content/organization, sentence structure,
usage, and mechanics.

For the GEPA and HSPA, the Revising/Editing Scoring Guide, a holistic 0-4 point scoring rubric, will be used to assess students' revisions to a student-written passage. The assessment materials will include a list of essential elements of writing that students may use as a resource as they work on the given text. Student revisions, which may address content/organization, sentence construction, usage, mechanics, and word choice, should enhance the meaning and clarity of the text without altering the central idea or intent of the author.

Reading, Listening, and Viewing
The Open-ended Scoring Rubric, a 0-4 scale, will be used to score student responses to open-ended items for reading, listening, and viewing. This rubric emphasizes students' clear, insightful use of situations or ideas in the text (written, spoken, or visual) as support for their responses.

Extending Understanding of the Text
The Extending Understanding Scoring Rubric, a 0-5 point scale, will be used to score students' text-based writing projects. This rubric emphasizes task construction, that is, a sustained grasp of the task and use of the reading texts, as well as plan development and language use. Students will be expected to draw on situations and ideas in the informational text as they make decisions, solve problems, and create an original work. Students taking the GEPA and HSPA will encounter everyday text and will use this as well as the informational text to make decisions, solve problems, and create an original work.

Speaking
The New Jersey Speaking Rubric, a 0-4 point scaled will be used to score students' spoken presentations. Emphasis in speaking is on content/organization and delivery. As with the writing tasks, students will have a copy of the Speaker's Checklist, which they may use as a resource during the 60-minute preparation period.