Discussion and questioning with sentence stems and synonyms

Promote student discussion and questioning in your classroom with this learner friendly discussion card.

"Add, change, challenge and develop" (ACDC) cards support students in becoming independent enquirers who are able to articulate their opinions confidently and eloquently - a prerequisite for discursive subjects like English, Literature and History where conceptually driven, informed and justified responses characterise the higher marks.

The "ACDC" card has four quadrants. At the top of each quadrant is a simple sentence stem to allow students to 'add, change, challenge or develop' ideas from other students. In the centre of each quadrant are ambitious synonyms that students could use in place of the stem words 'add, change, challenge or develop'. At the bottom of each quad is a question stem, which helps students to question other students in a way that elicits 'add, change, challenge or develop' responses.

The ACDC discussion cards allow for differentiation as lower ability students can be directed to 'add' points (blue), whilst higher ability students can be directed to 'challenge' ideas (red).