Scaffolding for Success:  Sentence Stems That Prompt Thinking

by Marcy Voss

Ask educators what are two things they lack, and in unison, they will say, “Time and money!” So, I am sure you will agree that any strategy that helps us “work smarter and not harder” is worth checking out. The good news is that there are some strategies for working with multilingual learners that save teachers time by helping them simultaneously accomplish multiple purposes, and they have great benefits for all students as well!

One such strategy is creating sentence stems that position your multilingual learners for success. We know that using sentence stems dramatically changes the quality and tone of a classroom because it helps students become increasingly more comfortable using academic language (Seidlitz & Perryman, 2021). But if we are strategic about the stems our multilingual learners use, we can impact more than just language. We can help our multilingual learners become critical thinkers.

Creating sentence stems that accomplish these goals requires teachers to keep three things in mind as they create them. First, the stem should directly relate to the lesson content objective. It should both drive home the objective and allow the teacher to assess the students’ learning. So, teachers should begin by thinking about what students should be able to do at the end of the lesson.

Second, the stem should incorporate the academic vocabulary terms students need to know related to the content objective. These terms can be found in state and district curriculum standards, as well as in textbooks and resource materials used in the lesson. Another place to find this vocabulary is in the assessments the students take. Students often miss an assessment question because they are unfamiliar with the mortar terms used. For example, if students are asked to “put together” two ideas to form a sentence during class instruction, they may not understand a test question that asks them to “combine” the ideas to form a sentence. Therefore, teachers may also want to look at their benchmark tests or released test items from state assessments as they select the vocabulary to include in the stems.

The third thing teachers need to keep in mind is the thinking skill that is required of the students when using the sentence stem. Many teachers use Bloom’s Taxonomy to create stems that require students to think at higher levels. I like to use another thinking model, Depth and Complexity. Created by Sandra Kaplan and Bette Gould in the 1990s as a way to differentiate instruction for gifted students, this framework can be used by teachers to help all students learn to think in in-depth and complex ways. Each thinking skill in the model is represented by an icon, which is an added scaffold for multilingual learners. When used in the classroom, students are prompted by the visual image to dig into deeper and more complex understandings (Voss, 2024).

When these three things have been considered, teachers can create sentence stems that focus on the content objective, include the academic vocabulary the students need to know, and require that students think in an in-depth, complex way. The stem can then be included as part of the language objective.

Let’s look at a few examples showing how this can be done:

3rd Grade Reading

Content Objective: Students will demonstrate knowledge of the distinguishing characteristics of folktales.

Academic vocabulary terms: distinguishing, characteristics, folktales

Type of thinking: Details: This type of thinking involves identifying the parts of the whole.   Students do this when identifying attributes/characteristics. (Note: If using Bloom’s Taxonomy, Analysis could be used because students will analyze the characteristics.)

Language Objective: Students will share orally with a partner using this sentence stem:

    One distinguishing attribute of a folktale is _____.  

8th Grade Math

Content Objective: Students will be able to convert between standard decimal notation and scientific notation.

Academic vocabulary terms: covert, standard decimal notation, scientific notation

Type of thinking: Rules: This type of thinking involves identifying structure. Identifying/using guidelines, formulas, or consistent methods is one way to do this. (Note: If using Bloom’s Taxonomy, Analysis could be used because students will analyze how to convert between standard decimal notation and scientific notation.) 

Language Objective: Students will write a Ticket Out the Door explaining how to convert from standard decimal notation to scientific notation using the following sentence stem:

The rule used to convert from standard decimal notation to scientific notation is _____.

High School Biology

Content Objective: Students will relate disruptions of the cell cycle to how they lead to the development of diseases such as cancer. 

Academic vocabulary terms: disruption, cell cycle, development, diseases, cancer, generalization

Type of thinking: Big Idea: This type of thinking involves looking at a topic from a bird’s-eye view and summarizing it in a way that synthesizes the information. Creating a generalization is one way of doing this. (Note: If using Bloom’s Taxonomy, Create could be used because students will synthesize the information.)

Language Objective: Students will write a generalization relating the disruptions of the cell cycle to how they lead to the development of diseases using this sentence stem: 

One generalization that summarizes how disruptions of the cell cycle lead to the development of diseases such as cancer is _______.

These sentence stems can be used in multiple ways to help students learn to listen, speak, read, and write. They would be perfect for a Turn and Talk activity to help students speak about the content (and stay on topic!). If crafted to be open-ended or allow for multiple responses, they would be great for a Conga Line activity. They could also be the response Stem in a QSSSA activity (Seidlitz et al., 2024). Other ideas include their use as a journal writing prompt, a discussion guide in a literature circle, a writing prompt in a Gallery Walk, and an activities guide in a learning center. A teacher’s imagination is the limit!

So, do you and your students a favor! Work smarter, not harder. Scaffold for success by creating sentence stems that encourage your multilingual learners to think in deeper, more complex ways while mastering the academic vocabulary they need to know.

References

Seidlitz, J., & Perryman, B. (2021). 7 Steps to a language-rich, interactive classroom (2nd ed.). Seidlitz Education. 

Seidlitz, J., Rogers, M., & Lara, M. (2024). QSSSA: The essential method for structuring conversation in all classrooms. Seidlitz Education.

The Depth and Complexity Icons (n.d.) The Center for Depth and Complexity. Retrieved April 17, 2025 from https://depthcomplexity.com/the-icons/.

Voss, M. (2024). Teaching gifted multilingual learners with depth and complexity. Seidlitz 

       Education.