Sentence Stems - A practical AI guide
Part 3 of 10 in the "Artificial Intelligence, Real Literacy" series
Hey friend,
Welcome! Before we get into the next in the “Artificial Intelligence, Real Literacy” series, I wanted to invite you to my upcoming PD.
We’re teaching and learning in the midst of the most rapid change the world has ever seen. But what do our teachers actually need to use to be capable users of AI? Without AI capability we fail to explore the many good possibilities while falling victim to the many problems AI has introduced.
But teacher AI capability is not rocket science. In fact, in this PD, I’ll show you a simple, four-step framework. It’s clear, actionable, and I think you’ll love it.
There’s a link below - I hope to see you there!
The writing technique that changed everything for me
I love writing.
Over the last three years, it’s changed my life. Weekly long-form posts, daily content on LinkedIn. I’ve written around 550,000 words. That’s roughly six Harry Potter books.
And what I’ve appreciated about this daily writing habit is not the formation of text, it’s the formation of myself. Years of writing about AI, education, and pedagogy, have left me with a clear philosophy and actionable practices that benefit myself and others.
But here’s the thing.
At school I was a terrible writer. Actually terrible.
I could think. I could talk. But getting ideas on the page was harder than the gingerbread man I found under my 4-year-old’s bed last week. The words would come out mangled or I’d stare at a blank page and feel stuck.
The technique I’m about to show you played a big part in changing that.
It’s called sentence stems, and it’s one of the most powerful writing scaffolds I know.
What is a sentence stem?
A sentence stem is a partially completed sentence designed to help a struggling learner get their thoughts onto paper. We provide the stem, and the student branches out with their own thinking.
There are two kinds of stems that I use:
Single-blank stems give you one gap to fill:
I thought the main theme of the story was _____.
To solve this equation, first I have to _____.
This discovery could impact our lives by _____.
Multi-blank stems ask you to make multiple connections:
The author’s use of _____ symbolises _____.
During the experiment, we observed that _____ caused _____.
The _____ movement was a response to _____, leading to _____.
The logic is simple. When a struggling writer is learning something new, they’re fighting on two fronts at once: the new idea and the challenge of expressing it. A sentence stem removes one of those battles. It provides the structure so the student can focus on the thinking.
That’s exactly what it did for me. I always had the thinking. The stem gave me a place to start.
Why they work
There’s a concept in education called the Zone of Proximal Development. The idea is that good scaffolding lands right in the middle: not so much support that there’s nothing left to do, and not so little that the student is lost.
A well-written sentence stem puts the learner in that zone. It gives them just enough to begin.
Keely Keller from the Teaching Channel puts it well: sentence stems shift the focus from the mechanics of writing to the content you actually want students to engage with.
And for a struggling writer, that’s going to make all the difference.
How to use AI to create them
Using AI to create sentence stems is a great application of the vision I cast at the beginning of this series: using AI to do the basics better. So here’s the prompts that I use to create sentence stems with AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, or Claude.
Generic stems (great for lesson introductions or retrieval practice at the end of class):
Role: Act as an expert educator and curriculum designer.
Task: Create a list of sentence stems on the topic of [INSERT YOUR TOPIC]. A sentence stem is a prompt or opening phrase that helps students begin their sentences or ideas, facilitating writing and discussion by providing a structured starting point. Include a mix of single-blank stems (one gap to fill) and multi-blank stems (two or three gaps), and vary the cognitive demand across the list.
Format: Give me 10 sentence stems in bullet points.
Specific stems (tied to a particular text, video, or image):
Role: Act as an expert educator and curriculum designer.
Task: Create a list of sentence stems based on the text I’ve attached. Limit the stems to ideas and language from this source only. A sentence stem is a prompt or opening phrase that helps students begin their sentences or ideas, facilitating writing and discussion by providing a structured starting point. Include both single-blank and multi-blank stems.
Format: Give me 10 sentence stems in bullet points.
Differentiated stems (for classrooms with a wide range of learners):
Role: Act as an expert educator and curriculum designer.
Task: Create a set of sentence stems on the topic of [INSERT YOUR TOPIC]. A sentence stem is a prompt or opening phrase that helps students begin their sentences or ideas, facilitating writing and discussion by providing a structured starting point.
Format: Give me three stems under the heading “Simple,” three under “Moderate,” and three under “Complex.” For Complex stems, add a note that students may need more than one sentence to complete the idea. Include a mix of single-blank and multi-blank stems throughout.
You can also ask for stems organised by Bloom’s taxonomy if you want to build a full progression from recall through to evaluation.
A few things worth thinking about
If your students haven’t used sentence stems before, use the gradual release model. Model it yourself first. Then do one together. Then small groups. Then solo. Don’t just hand them a list and hope for the best.
For your more advanced students, flip it. Ask them to write the stems. That’s a genuinely challenging metacognitive task and a great extension activity.
And at the end of a writing period, get students to share their completed stems with each other. The discussion that follows is often where the real consolidation happens.
Sentence stems are also one of the quickest and most reliable ways to do informal formative assessment. A handful of completed stems tells you a lot about how deeply a student has understood something.
So, that’s a quick guide to using AI to create sentence stems.
We’ve always known that they benefit our learners, but now the time cost taken with creating high quality resources has been largely removed. We’re living in an age where we can do the evidence-backed basics more often for more learners, and I’m not sad about it!
So why not give it a go this week?
Use AI to create a simple resource that could help your struggling writers make a start.
Let me know how you go!
