Sustainable Scaffold: Tri-Level Stem/Frame Bank

 Did you know there's a very effective way to design stems and frames for students, and a not-so-effective way also? I will be honest and share that during seasons of survival during the school year (I'm talking to you, winter months), these often get less of my attention. However, if I systemetize this with my teams, it becomes a much more sustainable scaffold! 

Here's a quick tool to bring to your next team meeting where you identify your unit's vocabulary, set a timer for 5 months, and knock these all out so they're ready to go for all students! I don't make separate stems and frames for every proficiency level - instead I design one that's newcomer-facing (sometimes these are just full sentences!), one that's middle-level proficiency, and one that's fully linguistically stretched! 

Don't think this works? I had eight and nine year olds in third grade using stretched stems. Instead of saying, "I was surprised when..." they started to use this stem, "I was utterly bewildered upon realizing..." all because they were presented with the opportunity to have their language stretched! They were even "bewildered upon realizing" that they'd be working on dribbling skills during their PE unit. 

Rationale: To create a tri-level stem/frame bank, I must identify the key concepts and any important academic or content vocabulary that must be embedded. I choose to intentionally identify stems/frames that are accessible to newcomers (level 1), support emerging students (level 3), and stretch languaging for exited or never-ELs (level 5). For this last level, get linguistically WILD and playful, and use language that no student in your school would ever use! Once I create the stems/frames, I present them to students out of order, with the Level 5 presented first.

Note that newcomer students must have opportunities to engage with the academic terms and content-specific vocabulary. In the example listed, I don't change the word level expectation from "quotient" to "answer." No, because our newcomer students must have opportunities to engage with the same vocabulary as their peers! If I water it down and simplify it from the get-go, I'm removing opportunities from students. You can certainly enhance this by adding synonyms to our instruction! 

Click here to grab your copy! Let me know when you try this out - email pics or stories to me at carlymspina@gmail.com. I'd love to feature your work!