Staar Expository Writing Prompts 4th Grade

High-Scoring 4th Grade STAAR Expository Essays

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Howdy! How have you been? I feel like I've been going full force ever since we got back from the break. We've made lots of changes, and I'm seeing the payoff. That's always good! Ha!

Anyway, I promised that I would post some high-scoring essays for everyone since we are limited to the samples from our own district and the state. I've gathered up some papers that scored a 6, 7, or 8. Thank you to all who submitted essays. I'm always taking them, so if you have some, please screenshot them from a computer and send them to me at texasteachingfanatic @ gmail.com. If you sent me some through email or Facebook and don't see them here, please resend them and I'll add them to the file.

You can download the file of High-Scoring Essays here.

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Read the score point 8 papers to your students and ask them what they notice about the essays. They can do this in small groups or as a whole class. If you do this in small groups, give each group a sticky note and ask them to write down what they noticed. You can guide them with questions like: What does the author do in the first paragraph/introduction? (Central idea clearly stated) What do you notice about the first sentence of the 2nd (and 3rd and 4th in some cases) paragraph? (Topic Sentence) What about the sentences that follow the topic sentence? (They provide evidence and support for the topic sentence.) What is the purpose of the closing/conclusion paragraph? (Let the reader know the author is finished and wrap up the essay.)
Make copies of an essay and ask students to find the main idea of each paragraph. This should lead them back to the central idea statement, their reasons, and the concluding statement at the end of the paper.
Read one 6, one 7, and one 8 paper to students and ask what they think the papers scored. See if students can tell you why one is scoring higher than the other.
Compare the papers to the rubric and point out how the papers scored highly. Let the rubric guide your conversations.
Allow students to highlight nice vocabulary words, different sentence structure, different names used for the main idea (ex: hero, idol, role model, etc), transition words, organization of paragraphs, etc.
Pull specific sentences that use skills your students still struggle with to use as mentors. Then have students imitate those sentences before transferring to their writing piece.

If you have other ideas, we'd love to hear them! Drop them in the comments below!

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If you're looking for something that will help your students with the structure of expository writing and mentor texts to guide them along, you might like this Expository Writing Bundle . Or if you need some games, task cards, or stations, you might like these games and task cards .

It's getting close, y'all! Hang in there! You've got this!! 😉

Until next time…

5 Comments

Is there a high school version?
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- I don't have any from high school teachers. I can put one together if I can get samples, but I'm not sure how many of you guys follow along with us elementary folks! Haha. I'll put out a request and see. 😊
  Reply
What rubric are you using for these writing?
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Kayla, I love your stuff ! Are you going to be presenting any workshops this summer? I would like to attend one if you were.
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- Hi, Michele! Not sure what happened to my notifications, but I'm just now seeing this! So sorry! No, I'm not doing open-enrollment workshops this summer. I'm going to several schools and districts, and my family and I are taking a road trip this summer, so there really wasn't time. Crossing my fingers that next year I can hold a few summer workshops! ❤️
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I'm a mom, wife, author, blogger, curriculum creator, 4th grade teacher, and lover of ALL THINGS writing! Here you will find lesson ideas, suggestions for your classroom, and our crazy adventures in 4th grade. I'm so glad you stopped by!

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