Ditching the Sentence Starters

Offering the students the option to use sentence starters to complete a piece of analytical writing is always a difficult decision.

On the one hand, sentence starters can clearly limit a response, lack the kind of flexibility needed to adapt to a particular question or task, and limit the development of student voice.

On the other hand, sentence starters can help scaffold a response, build confidence, and if developed properly, can even stretch even the top levels. I've built sentence starters to integrate alternate interpretations, tentative language, as well as structural and formal analysis.

Nonetheless - and I think we would all agree - ultimately we want students to learn to write for themselves, to develop their own voice.

Last week, there was a lovely moment when - given the option - one of my less confident students made the conscious decision to ditch the sentence starters and craft his own response instead. Hearing him have the confidence to articulate that decision really made my day!