Act like you are a writing teacher. Here is this prompt and a sample of my students writing. Tell me as a teacher if this sample meets the requirements and give them a score based on the rubric.: 
Prompt:
The following passage concludes an essay by Edward Abbey about Aravaipa Canyon in New Mexico. Read the 
passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you characterize Abbey’s attitudes toward nature and analyze how 
Abbey conveys these views. 
Once, years before, I had glimpsed a mountain lion in this 
canyon, following me through the twilight. It was the only 
mountain lion I had ever seen, so far, in the wild. I stopped, 
the big cat stopped, we peered at each other through the gloom. 
5 Mutual curiosity: I felt more wonder than fear. After a minute, or 
perhaps it was five minutes, I made a move to turn. The lion leaped 
up into the rocks and melted away. 
We see no mountain lions this evening. Nor any of the local 
deer, either Sonoran whitetail or the desert mule deer, although the 
10 little heart-shaped tracks of the former are apparent in the sand. 
Javelina, or peccary, too, reside in this area; piglike animals with 
tusks, oversized heads, and tapering bodies, they roam the slopes 
and gulches in family bands, living on roots, tubers, and innards 
of barrel cactus, on grubs, insects, and carrion. Omnivorous, like 
15 us, and equally playful, if not so dangerous. Any desert canyon 
with permanent water, like Aravaipa, will be as full of life as it 
is beautiful. 
We stumble homeward over the stones and through the 
anklebone-chilling water. The winter day seems alarmingly 
20 short; it is. 
We reach the mouth of the canyon and the old trail uphill 
to the roadhead in time to see the first stars come out. Barely 
in time. Nightfall is quick in this arid climate and the air feels 
already cold. But we have earned enough memories, stored 
25 enough mental-emotional images in our heads, from one brief 
day in Aravaipa Canyon, to enrich the urban days to come. As 
Thoreau found a universe in the woods around Concord, any 
person whose senses are alive can make a world of any natural 
place, however limited it might seem, on this subtle planet of 
30 ours. 
“The world is big but it is comprehensible,” says 
R. Buckminster Fuller. But it seems to me that the world is not 
nearly big enough and that any portion of its surface, left unpaved 
and alive, is infinitely rich in details and relationships, in wonder, 
35 beauty, mystery, comprehensible only in part. The very existence 
of existence is itself suggestive of the unknown—not a problem 
but a mystery. 
We will never get to the end of it, never plumb the bottom of 
it, never know the whole of even so small and trivial and useless 
40 and precious a place as Aravaipa. Therein lies our redemption. 
Requirements:
1 point
Responds to the prompt with a defensible thesis that analyzes the writer’s
rhetorical choices.
Responds to the prompt rather than restate or rephrase the prompt, and
the thesis clearly takes a position rather than just stating that there are
pros/cons.
4 points
EVIDENCE:
Provides specific evidence to
support all claims in a line of
reasoning.
AND
COMMENTARY:
Consistently explains how the
evidence supports a line of
reasoning.
AND
Explains how multiple rhetorical
choices in the passage
contribute to the writer’s
argument, purpose, or message.
Typical responses that earn
4 points:
• Uniformly offer evidence to
support claims.
• Focus on the importance of
specific words and details
from the passage to build an
argument.
• Organize and support
an argument as a line of
reasoning composed of
multiple supporting claims,
each with adequate evidence
that is clearly explained.
• Explain how the writer’s
use of rhetorical choices
contributes to the student’s
interpretation of the passage.
Typical responses that earn 3
points:
• Uniformly offer evidence to
support claims.
• Focus on the importance of
specific words and details
from the passage to build an
argument.
• Organize an argument as a
line of reasoning composed
of multiple supporting
claims.
• Commentary may fail to
integrate some evidence or
fail to support a key claim.
Typical responses that earn
2 points:
• Consist of a mix of specific
evidence and broad
generalities.
• May contain some simplistic,
inaccurate, or repetitive
explanations that don’t
strengthen the argument.
• May make one point well but
either do not make multiple
supporting claims or do not
adequately support more than
one claim.
• Do not explain the
connections or progression
between the student’s claims,
so a line of reasoning is not
clearly established. 
Typical responses
that earn 1 point:
• Tend to focus
on summary
or description
of a passage
rather than
specific details or
techniques.
• Mention
rhetorical
choices with little
or no explanation.
Writing that suffers from grammatical and/or mechanical errors that interfere with communication cannot earn the fourth point in this row.
• To earn the fourth point in this row, the response may observe multiple instances of the same rhetorical choice if each instance further contributes to the
argument, purpose, or message of the passage.
Response demonstrates sophistication of thought and/or a complex understanding
of the rhetorical situation.
1. Explaining the significance or relevance of the writer’s rhetorical choices
(given the rhetorical situation).
2. Explaining a purpose or function of the passage’s complexities or tensions.
3. Employing a style that is consistently vivid and persuasive.
Sample Essay:
Nature, according to some, can be something of high volatility. It is also that very nature, that according to some has unlimited beauty. It has been a topic viewed with many different angles and by many different people. One such person who has taken an angle on nature is Edward Abbey, publishing an essay on his visit to Aravaipa Canyon, New Mexico. In his essay, Abbey is in awe of nature, seen through his use of vivid imagery to show his passion for nature and his use of admiring diction to emphasize nature’s wonder.

        Abbey first establishes his passion for nature through vivid imagery. He begins after describing his run in with the mountain lion, saying, “We see no mountain lions this evening. Nor any of the local deer, either Sonoran whitetail or the desert mule deer, although the little heart-shaped tracks of the former are apparent in the sand. Javelina, or peccary…”. By describing even the smallest, most insignificant details like the deer tracks or the diet of peccaries, Abbey shows that he is well-read on many concepts of nature and the natural world. By doing so, Abbey demonstrates his motivation and passion to know concepts like deer tracks and peccary diets, motivation that if he didn’t have a passion for nature, would’ve been absent due to a subsequent laziness followed by lack of passion and these small details would’ve still been uncovered. Furthermore, Abbey’s passion for nature exhibits his awe for it, because without reverence and wonder for a certain concept, passion wouldn't follow.

         Abbey also uses admiring diction to emphasize nature’s wonder. One example of this is after he described the fauna of Aravaipa Canyon and after describing his experiences, he later states, “But we have earned enough memories, stored enough mental-emotional images in our heads, from one brief day in Aravaipa Canyon, to enrich the urban days to come. Abbey’s use of  “earned” emphasizes that memories of nature are like money and has value that we have to strive for. By bringing forward the idea of nature’s high value, Abbey shows that nature is something not to be regarded as petty, but something that deserves awe, thus showing his awe towards nature. Furthermore, in the same quote, Abbey utilized the word “enrich”. By claiming nature as something that can make the boring concrete-jungle life better, Abbey thus portrays nature as a mood-booster with the word “enrich”, essentially portraying nature in a positive light. By doing this,  Abbey’s view of nature is clear; he has an awe towards it for if he didn’t, he would’ve used words, including “invoke fear” or “possibly dangerous” and note words like “enrich”.

        Overall, Abbey shows his awe towards nature throughout his essay. He does so using admiring diction to emphasize nature’s wonder and also his vivid imagery to display his passion for such a concept.