Guiding Questions for Teachers:

Domains of Academic Language

Academic Questions to Drive Instruction

Language Domain
Interpersonal Stance • Does the way this is written tell us anything about who the author is or
what he or she believes? Why or Why not?
Information Load • How many pieces or chunks of information are in this sentence?
• Why is there so much information packed into this paragraph?
Organization of • What clue words and pieces of information did the author give us so we
Information can follow where this paragraph is going?
• Are there some clue words that tell us about relationships? For example,
can we tell if there are smaller ideas/ things that are part of bigger or
overarching ideas/ things?

Lexical Choices • Do we see some phrases that we don’t often use when we speak? Why are
they here? Are there many different words in this passage? Why do you
think that is necessary? Some of these words are challenging- what do
they tell us that easier words might not be able to tell us?
Representational • Do you see any words that represent a process or something happening?
Congruence Why would the author use just one word to say that and not explain the
whole process?
• It doesn’t look like we can tell who was doing the action in this sentence
(e.g., “the telephone was invented”); why would that be the case?
Guiding Questions for Teachers:
Domains of Academic Language