R.A.F.T. Strategy
Purpose:
Role Audience Format Topic (R.A.F.T.) is a writing strategy that helps students understand a topic from different perspectives. The R.A.F.T. strategy provides a focused writing assignment and encourages students to analyze the content while assuming different roles and addressing different audiences. The strategy motivates students by allowing for choice and involving them in the topic in a personal way.
Strategy Instruction:
1. Choose a book or topic (T) and identify the essential purpose of the reading or lesson. How will writing help meet that goal?
• Example: After reading Song of the Trees by Mildred Taylor the students will understand the racial relationships between whites and African Americans in Mississippi during the depression.
2. Identify a number of role(s) (R) the students can assume as they write about the topic.
• Example: Students can choose to write about the story as viewed by Cassie, Big Ma, Mr. Andersen or Papa.
3. Decide who the audience (A) will be and what format (F) the writing will follow.
• Example: The audience may be a child in the future, a judge, an ex-slave, a new immigrant, etc. The format may be a diary, a news release, an affidavit, etc.
4. After the students have read the assignment, have them choose from the R.A.F.T. options. Writing can be done individually or you may group like roles together.
To get started using the R.A.F.T. strategy with your students today, download this helpful chart of ideas for each letter of the R.A.F.T.
RTF
Enhancements
You may differentiate this strategy by allowing for or controlling the choices for any of the R.A.F.T. elements. For instance, you may have the students choose a role and the audience but you choose the format and topic.
Does this sound like a book your students would enjoy? Visit the Lesson Plan section for a language arts lesson for Song of the Trees by Mildred Taylor.
Adapted from Doug Buehl’s Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning, 2001(second edition). The International Reading Association, www.reading.org