Sentence Stems for Academic Discourse

Example, Subject Area and Grade Span: Any Subject, Grades K-12

What it is:

Academic discourse provides students with the language tools (vocabulary and syntax) necessary to competently discuss the topic using complete sentences. Structured dialogue in the form of “sentence stems” provides a scaffold for students to use and internalize academic language in useful context. Group and partner activities provide an opportunity for this important dialogue.

What it looks like:

• Model for students’ fluent use of response starters and have them repeat prior to their use in partner and group discussion.
• Examples of sentence stems:
• “The text is about…”
• “The main idea is…”
• “The most important details are…”
• “The text structure is…”
• “The text features include…”
• “To summarize the key ideas and concepts…”
• “I learned…”
• “My partner pointed out…”
• “My partner mentioned that…”
• “We agreed that…”
• “We decided that…”
• Pose a question to students for the purpose of partner/group discussion
  (ex: “What are the most important details in this passage?”).
• In pairs, have students use specific “sentence stems” to support the use of academic language (ex. The most important details in this passage are...”).
• Have students write their responses in complete sentences using academic sentence stems.

How you know it’s working:

• Students use academic language when speaking and writing.
• Students respond and discuss in complete sentences.
• Develop a rubric to evaluate the effective use of academic language.

Things to consider:

• This is an effective strategy to support English learners. 
• This strategy can be utilized across the curriculum.
• Partner students carefully according to their language needs.

Reference:

Feldman, K., & Kinsella, K. (2005). Narrowing the language gap institute: Academic language and vocabulary development for all students PreK-12. San Diego, California.