rubric_gradations: 27

This data as json

id	skill_code	dimension	level	level_label	behavioral_description	sample_response	created_at	updated_at	active_version
27	L-FIGURATIVE	autonomy	3	Independent	Student identifies and interprets figurative language during assigned analytical tasks without needing external frameworks or teacher direction. Recognizes devices as they appear and can explain how they function in context — what they reveal about meaning, tone, or theme. Notices when an author chooses a word with specific connotations over a near-synonym and can articulate what the choice adds. These interpretive moves are fluent during structured analysis but are not yet a habitual part of casual reading.	The metaphor 'the city gnawed at its own bones' does something specific — 'gnawed' implies a slow, repetitive, almost compulsive action, not a single act of destruction but an ongoing process. The city isn't being destroyed by something external; it's consuming itself, which suggests the decay comes from within. Calling the infrastructure 'bones' frames it as the city's skeletal structure, the foundational elements that hold everything else up, so what's being eaten away is the most essential part. The word 'gnawed' matters over alternatives like 'devoured' because devouring is fast and dramatic — gnawing is gradual, persistent, almost unconscious. That fits the poem's larger point that urban decay happens incrementally, not through catastrophe but through slow neglect.	2026-05-24 00:17:32	2026-05-26 01:43:59	1