As an AP® Lang teacher, you work hard to help your students master essay writing. Did you know that sentence starters for essays can drastically improve your students writing?
Whether you call them sentence frames, sentence starters, or sentence stems – it’s all the same idea. Sentence stems help students be effective writers.
Why should you use sentence starters?
Sentence frames can be formulaic, but they also help students vary their syntax and improve their word choice. Some students get stuck writing the same types of sentences and using the same diction over and over. Sentence frames can put a stop to that.
Sentence stems also help students to articulate their ideas more effectively. Lots of students get stuck when writing. They don’t know where to start or how to expand on their ideas. The wording seems to evade them. Sentence stems can help solve this problem.
Here are three ways to use sentence starters for essays in your AP® Lang classroom.
Thesis Statement Practice
I love using sentence starters with thesis statements because they are extremely effective at assisting students to craft well-written statements. I often have students practice writing thesis statements as bell-work. The day after reading a passage, students will craft a thesis statement to a prompt as their warm-up.
As much as possible, I look over their thesis statements and give feedback. I’m particularly looking to see if the thesis is defensible. You can also have students look at each other’s statements and answer the same question: is this thesis defensible?
Practicing Varied Syntax
As I mentioned before, some students struggle with varying their syntax. They get stuck in writing things the same way. I like to give my students sentence frames that convey the same idea, but use varied sentence structure.
A great practice for this is working as a class on one of the sentences. Craft the sentence together using one of the sentence frames. Then, have students work in groups or individually to take that same sentence and change it to fit a different sentence frame.
Through this, students can practice manipulating and moving pieces of the sentence to create a new structure. The challenge is to keep the same meaning!
Reinforcing Line of Reasoning
When my students are approaching a passage, I have them divide the text into chunks or sections. I like for them to identify the main purpose of these sections. Essentially, I want them to identify what the author is doing in the beginning, middle, and end of the passage.
Then, I have my students either write the main idea of each section, or I ask them to imagine they would write an essay about this passage and craft the topic sentences. I use sentence frames to help students craft the main idea or topic sentences.
Through this, I helped my students make connections between the author’s line or reasoning in the text and the line of reasoning for writing an essay–a powerful connection to make!
Looking for done-for-you sentence frames to add to your AP Lang instruction, check out Coach Hall’s AP Lang Sentence Frames here.
For more tips about teaching AP Lang, check out these 8 tips for AP Lang teachers.
