Instructional Strategy: RAFT (Role/Audience/Format/Topic)
Source: Buehl, D. (2009). RAFT (Role/Audience/Format/Topic). Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning (144-147). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
This lesson is probably most effective in an English classroom, for it challenges students to form deeper analysis’ and critical thinking about a particular subject—this lesson seeks to solve the problem that many teachers have of student’s writing being surface level, careless, unorganized, etc. The RAFT analogy translates into the following four points of writing: Role of the writer (who are you?), Audience for the Writer (to whom are you writing?), format of the writing (what form will your writing assume?), and Topic to be addressed in the writing (what are you writing about?). Teachers presenting this lesson must ask themselves the following questions when formulating their assignment: how will this writing assignment assist the student’s learning about a particular topic? What roles could the students assume that are relevant to the time period/material studied? What is an appropriate audience for their writing? After answering these questions, teachers form a RAFT outline that assigns students a particular topic, role, audience, etc. This use of the RAFT technique allows students to relate to their topic on a deeper level and provide more specific responses. The book also encourages teachers to have sample RAFT writing examples for students to look at and compare to their own writing in order to further help them organize their assignment. I think this lesson would be very effective in an English classroom because it specifies writing assignments and allows students to have a personal connection to their writing—plus, it gives them the organizational skills they need to get started on their assignment. Providing a clear and detailed structure for an assignment helps to produce clear and well-structured final papers. I can see myself using this lesson when I am a teacher.