Record S3 · 1979
S3: Fictional Narrative
Written spring 1979; published in the December 1980 NAEP report. Age 17 in school; individual grade unknown.
Original student excerpt
This odd-looking bird has extremely thin legs with gigantic feet. Some say he has a very peculiar beak and when you look at him face to face it seems as though his eyes will bulge right out.
Two consecutive sentences from the handwritten response, line breaks collapsed; original language preserved.
Prompt and conditions
Exact prompt. Look at the picture for a while, and then make up a story about it. When you are ready, write your story. It may be helpful for you to start with one of the following lines, but you may begin in any way you wish. Possible First Lines “I’m telling you, Henry, if you don’t get rid of that thing, it’s going to eat up the cat!” “But mother, I am telling the truth! It laid an egg in the Chevy.” “Last night a very odd-looking bird appeared in the neighborhood.”
- Source conditions
- Picture Prompt No Sources; picture and possible opening lines only.
- Time
- 25 minutes. Explicit task time.
- Production / archive
- handwritten; anonymous facsimile in 1980 report.
- Drafting
- timed first draft; no feedback revision.
- Population and selection
- National probability sample of in-school U.S. 17-year-olds; individual grade/geography suppressed; out-of-school youth excluded. NAEP probability task sample; displayed paper purposively selected as score-point exemplar.
Scorer and feedback role
Institutional Assessor. Not an authenticated classroom-teacher feedback pair.
- Original source classification
- 2 of 4 — some evidence of storytelling. Whole-response narrative primary-trait score; bare, rambling, incomplete, or disconnected plot remained possible.
- Form
- Score Only; response-specific.
- Revision after feedback
- None survives.
Read the evidence coding
Conceptual claimThe bird’s appearance is extraordinary.
Ideas and relationships2 coded units. Physical features are tied to an observer’s reaction.
AbstractionConcrete
Causal reasoningNone
Qualification / counterargumentLimited Attribution
Evidence usePrompt Detail
OrganizationBroad Description Then Closeup
Sentence controlMeaning Clear
Lexical precisionSpecific
Articulation limitDescription alone does not establish plot, motivation, or consequence.
These are descriptive codes, not scores. No composite or rank is calculated. Primary-trait score 2 represented 23.1% of rateable narratives; score reflects the whole more weakly plotted response, not only this excerpt.