Scaffolding for Academic Language Use by Students

Colleen MooreSenior Field Trainer

University of Texas at Austin

Planning for Academic Language Use by Students

1. Identify meaningful opportunities for students to speak/write about content.

2. Design meaningful speaking/writing task or question(s).

3. Write out sample student responses.4. Create a checklist or rubric for grading.5. Create supports for students who need

them.

Speaking & writing

• Different language skills support and reinforce one another

• Speaking can help prepare for writing• Writing can help prepare for

speaking

Sample classroom scenario

• Students are learning about the organelles of plant and animal cells

Content Objective:Compare plant and animal cells,

including the structure and function of the organelles.

Everyday language vs. Academic language

Everyday• The plant and animal

have mostly the same stuff.

• Animal cells don’t have the green ones.

• That cell has the wall thing around it.

Academic language• Both the plant and animal

cell have a nucleus, mitochondrion, cell membranes, and cytoplasm.

• Plant cells have chloroplasts to make sugar from sunlight, but animal cells do not have these organelles.

• Because the plant cell has a cell wall to give it support, it is squared.

Analyze the desired response

• Both the plant and animal cell have a nucleus, mitochondrion, cell membranes, and cytoplasm.

• Plant cells have chloroplasts to make sugar from sunlight, but animal cells do not have these organelles.

Using the sample response for scaffolding

Desired response:Both the plant and animal cell have a nucleus, mitochondrion, cell membranes, and cytoplasm.

Scaffold for students:Both the plant and animal cell have (a) ______________________________.organelles

Plant and animal cells both have ________. organelles

Using the sample response for scaffolding

Desired response:Plant cells have chloroplasts to make sugar from sunlight, but animal cells do not have these organelles.Scaffold for students:_____ cells have ________ to _________Plant/animal organelles verb + phrase to tell

the function but ________ cells do not have these organelles.

plant/animal

Longer writing tasks

• Provide scaffolding according to proficiency levels–More/less detail–Response banks

Practice:• Read the sample paragraphs and analyze the

language to identify possible sentence frames.

• Select 2-3 sentence frames that would empower your ELLs to express their knowledge about cell organelles.

© 2010 The University of Texas at Austin and Texas Education Agency 9

Planning steps for integrating writing

1. Identify meaningful opportunities for students to speak/write about content.

2. Design meaningful speaking/writing task or question(s).

3. Write out sample student responses.

4. Create a checklist or rubric for grading.5. Create supports for students who

need them.

Contact information:

Colleen MooreSenior Field TrainerTexas Institute for the Acquisition of Language

for Learning, The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational

RiskUniversity of Texas at Austincmoore@austin.utexas.edu

Resources & Acknowledgements• Five-step planning process adapted from Dr. Kate Kinsella’s

work in Taking Center Stage – ACT II, accessed at http://pubs.cde.ca.gov/tcsii/prolearningtoolkit/kinsellaindex.aspx on June 1, 2011.

• Inside a Cell activities accessed at http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/teachers

© 2010 The University of Texas at Austin and Texas Education Agency 12