Grade 8 Level 2 Writing Sample

← Back to Writing Samples index
Compare your home, village or city to the place you live now. Describe the things that are the same and different.
Student Example

Student writing sample:

This is a big city and my cityis small. The road of my city is not clean. But here is very clean. My city is hot and desert but here is cold and snow In here have big buildings and in my city there small. Here is a big city and in my city small only 10,000 people. My city is mostly poor peoples. Here is rich peoples. People is more gentil. Here have more parks many grass. Here is at morning, at night at my city.

Uses more utility words (city, here, grass, parks), descriptive words (very clean, big, small, poor) and subject-specific words (people, road) related to familiar objects, actions and topics.

Writes nouns (city, people), verbs in present (is, have), past (no evidence) and continuous (no evidence) tenses, object pronouns (no evidence), adjectives (clean, more, rich, gentil [gentle], many), adverbs (only, mostly) and prepositions (in, at) with agreement errors.

Level 1: Writes simple and compound sentences (My city is hot and desert but here is cold and snow [.] In here have big buildings and in my city there small.).
Approaching Level 2: Writes detailed simple sentences and sentences with clauses.

Uses words with similar sounds and sentence frames to write ideas (My city is …, Here is …).

Answers questions and writes a personal response (This is a big city and my city is small.) in response to writing prompt.

Level 1: Connects ideas in simple sentences using familiar conjunctions (and, but).
Approaching Level 2: Connects ideas in related sentences using conjunctions, time markers (morning, night) and sequence markers (no evidence).

Level 1: Edits for capitalization of names (no evidence) and words at beginning of sentences (The, Here), periods (.) and spelling (here, city, more).
Approaching Level 2: Edits sentences for end punctuation, commas in a list, tenses, spelling and addition of details.

Use the checkboxes below to display the corresponding benchmark text.

Benchmark Ratings

 
 2
 
 2
 
 1
 
 2
 
 2
 
 1
 
 1
Overall
Benchmark Level:
2

How to use this Writing Sample

This collection of grade-level writing samples provides teachers of English Language Learners with examples of student writing at each proficiency level. Teachers can use these interactive examples to build their understanding of the different writing competencies and levels within the Benchmarks.

  1. Click on “View Full Size” to see the original student writing
  2. Select the competency you wish to view. Boxes in the corresponding colour will highlight the text in the sample and display an explanation of the competency below.
  3. Click on one or more competencies to view at a time.

Download and Print this Resource

Download
|  Copyright |  Feedback |