Embedded Files
Classroom Practice:
Accountable Cards
Classroom Practice:
Accountable Cards
Intended Purpose
Intended Purpose
To support students' academic conversations. Accountable Cards provide structured opportunities for speaking and allow students to demonstrate their abilities while helping teachers assess and support individual needs.
Benefit for LTELs
Benefit for LTELs
Using the Accountable Cards as a scaffold for students' conversations allows them to vary their conversation contributions and sharpen their academic conversation skills.
Using the Accountable Cards as a formative assessment allows the teacher to differentiate support for each student’s needs and to see class trends for support.
ELD.PI.1 Exchanging information and ideas with others through oral collaborative discussions on a range of social and academic topics
SL.1 Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively
Use Content Standards for the conversation.
For Example, if you are discussing how rocks are formed, you would use the following NGSS standard:
Middle School. Earth and Space Science 2. Sub-item 1. Earth’s Systems. Develop a model to describe the cycling of Earth’s materials and the flow of energy that drives this process.
Teacher Moves
Teacher Moves
Customize cards to meet your grade level’s speaking and listening or content area criteria.
Print and cut cards. If you use accountable cards as a formative assessment, it is best to use a different color for each card.
Distribute cards to each student. The first time you use these, distribute the same number of each card to every student. Once you become more familiar with each student's strengths and growth areas, you can customize which cards to give each student.
Introduce how to use the cards and why each is important to the discussion, i.e., we quote from the text to support our reasoning.
Model a conversation (or show a video) and use the accountable cards.
Facilitate a classroom conversation.
Student Moves
Student Moves
Collect accountable cards from your teacher.
If you do not know what a card is used for, ask your teacher questions about the card.
Each time you participate in the class or small group discussion, place the card representing the type of engagement in front of you.
Keep participating in the discussion until all cards are placed before you.
Reflect on your participation in the discussion. What areas were glowing and which are growing for your next discussion?
Set a goal about how you will participate in the next class discussion.
Resources/ Teacher Examples
Resources/ Teacher Examples
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