R.A.F.T is a writing strategy and activity that helps guide students through a variety of topics and writing styles and ultimately create a piece of writing to share as a result. This method allows students to create a piece of writing that is unique and creative, but still has some structure and a base line to help students start. RAFT is flexible and allows for many different approaches which is why it is so beneficial within the classroom as all students have a chance at success. This strategy also is successful when used as formative assessment as students can demonstrate what they have learned throughout this unit and show their learning in a fun and unique way. RAFT is also a tool that can be used for any subject!
RAFT stands for:
R – Role of the writer
Who are you as the writer?
A – Audience
Who are you writing to?
F – Format
What form will your writing take?
T – Topic
What is the main subject or message?
UVIC Teacher Competencies:
I found that this strategy connects to UVIC teacher competency #9: Demonstrate a deep understanding of overarching disciplinary concepts. I believe this connects to RAFT as this strategy can be used in various subject areas and it is critical to have an understanding of what you are looking to get out of an assignment/activity. RAFT allows teachers to implement ELA techniques (writing processes) into any subject. For example, you could use RAFT as an activity in the science classroom and assign students a prompt that is related to whatever unit you are currently in (ie: The Water Cycle) and the students would then need to make the connections to the concepts they are learning in both science and ELA. This method is extremely versatile and endless opportunities
As a class we had the opportunity to try this method out for ourselves. My favourite part about this activity was seeing the variation among all my classmates. Some of us even had the exact same prompts and yet none of ours were the same. I can only imagine how much creativity and uniqueness you would see within a classroom of 20+ students!
For our class example we were given an image from a picture book. We were then given a variety of options to select from. I chose to write using the picture of the man and the little girl using the magnifying glasses. These were my results from my spinner:
Role: The little girl
Audience: (We did not specifically pick an audience as we just presented to each other)
Format: Wanted poster
Topic: What is her story/what is happening?
Here is the example I created:
One Response
judi61
Kylie,
Your RAFT writing assignment was fun to hear you read it! I hope that you will someday be able to use this strategy in your future lessons!
Thank you,
Judi