2019 MCAS
Grade 5 English Language Arts
Question 9

The narrative, describing what happens next in The Wild Robot, is somewhat developed with a focus on the events that occur immediately after the robot awakens. There is limited description of events and details: "The robot stood up. All the otters stood there staring at the robot." The plot unfolds quickly and is repetitive: "But one otter stayed with the whole robot. But reader, I don't think you were expecting for there to be one otter to stay with the who[l]e robot." There is a limited sense of cohesion in the narrative, and most transitions consist solely of a single word, such as "then," "but," and "and." Overall, there is only a partial awareness of the purpose for writing demonstrated in the narrative.

The narrative contains sentences that are mostly simplistic in structure and contain grammatical errors, such as "They she ran off to." Errors are present throughout and sometimes interfere with overall understanding. Given its length and lack of complexity, the narrative demonstrates only mostly consistent control of Standard English conventions for this grade level.