At the last K-4 ELA meeting, the group got into a fairly lively discussion about our current writing benchmarking practices, and especially how we score the listening piece. I've asked all of the committee members to go back to their respective teams and get a sense for where they are regarding how the listening piece should be scored. Before we get into what the issue is though, perhaps it's a good idea to really review what and why we're doing this benchmark writing for anyway. To try to help in this discussion, I'm attaching a graphic I designed to illustrate the three levels or purposes for benchmarking, in this case, writing (Note: Benchmarking can be done in almost any subject area and in the future, as a building, we may want to explore its use in other content areas). Every level is predicated on the fact that all of the students in a grade level are writing on the same topic at relatively the same time of the year.
In the Level 1 analysis, teachers can use the information that they get from the student writing to measure the progress of the individual child across time. 
In addition, they get an idea of where each student is progressing relative to the rest of the students in the class.
In Level 2 analysis, teachers within the same grade level meet together to discuss student work. They utilize the student writing to establish a common expectation for each trait relative to the students in their grade level. In addition, they establish anchor papers for high, middle and low 
student work for each trait. In undertaking this work, teachers at each grade establish a clear and common understanding of what student writing should be at that particular grade level. One benefit of engaging in this level of benchmarking is that the establishment of those common expectations for teachers leads to a deeper understanding of students as writers. It enables teachers to establish grade level expectations and standards for students as well. In Level 3, teachers from each grade level have conversations about student writing. Here, teachers not only deepen their understanding of students as writers at their particular grade level, but also grow in their awareness and understanding of how students are developing as writers across all grade levels. Level 3 benchmarking conversations enable teachers to establish building wide expectations and set standards for each grade level.
So what does this have to do with scoring the listening benchmark? There seems to be some concern for using the six trait rubric on the writing that is a result of the listening prompt. The problem is that this prompt is very different than the others; it's crafted to mimic the NYS tests and therefore is much more scripted than the others. When teachers try to score the writing using the Six Trait rubric, they have difficulty because much of the information is already provided for the students via the listening prompt and the prompt itself is very specific as to what information the students are to provide in their answer. It is difficult for the student to score maximum credit on the rubric for dimensions of Ideas and Voice. The problem is, that the rubric provided for the state is a holistic rubric (i.e. it results in a single score) and doesn's provide diagnostic/instructional feedback to the teacher or student regarding areas for continued growth. It would also be impossible to monitor and track growth, as in Level 1 above.
So what do you think? Should we use the same rubric? If so, should we change the listening prompts to be more "open ended" so that they lend themselves to be scored with the Six Trait rubric? Is there a way to score the passage on only a few of the dimensions, thereby accomplishing both tasks (practicing for NYS ELA and monitoring growth?) What do you think? Let you ELA rep know, or share your comments here.
student work for each trait. In undertaking this work, teachers at each grade establish a clear and common understanding of what student writing should be at that particular grade level. One benefit of engaging in this level of benchmarking is that the establishment of those common expectations for teachers leads to a deeper understanding of students as writers. It enables teachers to establish grade level expectations and standards for students as well.
