Metropolitan Diploma Plus H.S.
Building Speaking and Listening Skills
Metacognitive Stems Tool
The Metacognitive Stems document was developed in collaboration with reDesign to help build higherorder thinking skills and metacognition into structured text-based discussions in classrooms. With the
support of reDesign coaches, Metro teachers compiled a list of sentence stems organized by the following
categories: accountable talk stems, metacognitive discussion stems, and exit ticket stems. This document
listing these stems is taped to each students’ desk in every classroom at Metro so students can refer to
them while engaging in discussions or writing essay.
Introduce
Discussion
Norms
Create Safe
Environment for
Students
Explicitly State
Purpose of
Stems
Introduce Class Discussion Norms & Create Safe Environment
Before students can begin having discussions with their peers,
they must first be familiar with classroom norms.
 Identify a list of classroom norms with students around
“How to Have A Classroom Discussion”
 Once norms are finalized, create and display a large
poster listing them and refer to the list regularly.
 Make sure that prior to introducing class discussions,
students feel safe and comfortable speaking in front of
their peers.
Use Small Steps
and Scaffolding
Student Feedback:
 “Instead of saying, “because…” I
now say, “The big idea is that…”
 “Metacognitive stems help us
understand passages more
clearly.”
 “At first I was confused on how
to start sentences, but once I
started using [the stems] I
passed my test that I had
previously failed.”
Explicitly State Purpose of Using Stems
 Remind students that using this language will help
them enhance their writing and Speaking & Listening
skills not only in school, but outside school as well (e.g. job interviews).
 Set the expectation that students must speak in every class using the stems.
 Remind students that their grade is directly aligned to their ability to speak and write using the
tool.
Begin with Small Steps and Scaffolding
 Do not introduce the entire list of stems at once, rather have students “practice” by using one
stem group at a time (e.g. accountable talk prompts), and introduce subsequent stems later.
 Allow students to practice using the stems in small groups (e.g. think-pair-share) to gain
confidence in her speaking skills before having to participate have a class-wide discussion.
 Start out by probing students and telling them which stem to start with. As students gain
confidence and the ability to identify stems independently, eliminate scaffolding.
 One teacher shared that it can take a few days before students are accustomed to using the stems.
After 4-6 weeks the majority of students are using metacognitive stems whenever they speak in
class without being prompting.