What is a RAFT?
Kirk Guidry, Director of Professional Development
Animal School
Differentiation Strategy: RAFT
What is a RAFT?
 RAFT stands for…
Role
Audience
Format
Topic
What is RAFT?
 The RAFTs Technique (Santa, 1988) is a system to help students understand their
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role as a writer, the audience they will address, the varied formats for writing, and
the expected content. It is an acronym that stands for:
Role of the Writer - Who are you as the writer? Are you Sir John A. Macdonald? A
warrior? A homeless person? An auto mechanic? The endangered snail darter?
Audience - To whom are you writing? Is your audience the Canadian people? A
friend? Your teacher? Readers of a newspaper? A local bank?
Format - What form will the writing take? Is it a letter? A classified ad? A speech? A
poem?
Topic + strong Verb - What's the subject or the point of this piece? Is it to persuade
a goddess to spare your life? To plead for a re-test? To call for stricter regulations on
logging?
Almost all RAFTs writing assignments are written from a viewpoint different from
the student's, to another audience rather than the teacher, and in a form different
from the ordinary theme. Therefore, students are encouraged to use creative
thinking and response as they connect their imagination to newly learned
information.
What Is Its Purpose?
 The purpose of RAFTs is to give students a fresh way
to think about approaching their writing. It occupies
a nice middle ground between standard, dry essays
and free-for-all creative writing. RAFTs combines
the best of both. It also can be the way to bring
together students' understanding of main ideas,
organization, elaboration, and coherence...in other
words, the criteria by which compositions are most
commonly judged.
Differentiation Strategy: RAFT
Parts of a RAFT
Role
Audience
Format
Topic
Students
assume a role
that is related in
some manner to
the task.
Students create
the product for
an identified
person, group,
object, to the
subject or often
the title of the
piece of work,
etc.
Refers to type of
product that will
be used to
explain the topic
to the audience
Refers to the
subject or often
the title of the
piece of work
Sample RAFT Formats
More Sample RAFT Formats
Sample RAFT Strips
Sample RAFT Strips
Sample RAFT Strips
Sample RAFT
Role
TV news reporter
Audience
Television
audience
Format
Live broadcast
Topic
The tax on tea
Tea Party At Midnight!!
Today I am at the Boston Harbor where there is a breaking story to report. The
British Colonists are out of control. They are trying to punish Britain for taking
their tea. The colonists were very angry. Around midnight they decided to dress
up like Indians and boarded the British ship in the Boston Harbor. The
colonists
unloaded all the tea and threw it in the bay. No one on the ship was injured, but
the cargo of tea was a complete loss. The colonists then left the ship and
disbanded. Further details will be reported as they come in.
Sample Raft
Sample Raft
Role William Dollar Audience U.S. Mint/Bureau of Engraving Format Memorandum Topic Plead for Time Off TO: Personnel
Director
FROM: William Dollar
DATE: April xx, 19xx
RE: Request for Vacation My name is Dollar, Bill Dollar. I've been on the job for the last twelve months without a break, and I am writing to
request a two-week vacation. In considering my request, I think it's essential that you understand exactly how much work we dollar bills have to
do during our time of service for the United States Treasury. One-dollar bills are the more prevalent, most used, and most abused of all the
paper currency. Our life expectancy is only about 18 months. By comparison, the average $100 bill has been in circulation around nine years!
My journey through the many hands that hold me begins after I leave the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and get sent out to a Federal Reserve
Bank. I was shipped to Richmond, Virginia, although I could have been sent to any one of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks located throughout the
country. While it's nice to travel and see the country, that first trip involves being bundled in currency "bricks" and chunked into armored
trucks...no daylight or sunshine for us there! Then we get sent to regular banks when they need to increase the cash they have on hand for their
customers. So while it seems like our job is pretty easy to start with, let me assure you it gets much worse from there.
In my case, I went out of our bank with a whole lot of other bills to become part of the day-laborer payroll of a construction company. It turns out
there's a lot of house-building going on in the fast-growing Research Triangle area of North Carolina, and a lot of temporary help is hired on
that has to be paid at the end of each day. I was paid out to a guy who'd been hauling sand all day to the cement mixers. On his way home, he
stopped by the Better Burger place for a buffalo burger and fries, and I ended up going into the cash register there. When they were closing up
that evening, the manager divided up tip money among the wait staff, and I was off again.
I went into this very nice woman's purse, but I didn't stay there long. In fact, I didn't stay any place too long; I was in and out of cash registers, fed
into soft drink machines, passed back and forth between husbands and wives and kids, folded into swans and other strange shapes at late-night
dinner tables, crumpled up and wadded into jeans pockets, and even washed a few times in laundromats.
But I know how crucial we are: employers use us to pay their workers, and the workers use us to buy food and medicines and clothes and gas, and
then we're used to pay the people who work in the grocery and drug stores, the malls, and the gas stations. Then those people use us all over
again to pay not only for goods but also for services like haircuts and car washes.
It is true that in some ways my life is easier than it was for dollar bills that came before me, because people use checks, credit cards, debit cards, and
other electronic transfers more and more all the time. But there will always be a need for good old hard cash like me. It's just that I'm awfully
tired from all my travels, and I may only have another year at the most left in me before I'm recalled, retired, and shredded into thousands of
tiny pieces. I'd like to have time to recover from all this wear and tear so that I can keep on circulating until I'm in no condition to continue. Will
you consider my request?
Sincerely,
William P. Dollar
Practice RAFTING
Activity 1
Role
Audience
Format
Topic
Ship Captain
Emigrants
waiting to
come to
America
Booklet
How to prepare for your
trip?
Tortoise
Hare
E-Mail
Why I Won the Race?
Roots
Flower
Letter
You’d be lost without me
Perimeter
Area
Diary Entry
How your shape affects
me
Verb
Subject
Rap Song
Why we need to be in
agreement
Examples
Role: Roots
Audience: Flower
Format: Letter
Topic: You’d be lost without me
January 14, 2011
Dear Flower:
I know that you think you are “all that” with your beautiful colored
petals….pink!!! Everyone just loves you and loves to look at you because you’re so
pretty. You even smell nice! No one ever thinks of me because I’m all white and hairy
looking. I guess they think I’m not really attractive, therefore, I’m not very important.
Wrong!!!!!
Without me you’d be nothing….totally lost! I bring you all of your moisture and
nutrients. I cause you to be able to stand up and reach for the sun that you need to grow
and prosper. If I fail…you fail! Ha!
So I need my proper respect. I am your ugly conjoined twin that you need to
live. As soon asyou are separated from me you will start to die. And in a day or so, it will
be all over with. I hope you will reconsider our separation and CALL ME! I’ll be rootin’ for
your call!
Love you,
Your roots
Dear Harvey Hare,
I hope this email reaches you well. After the race you
seemed a little shocked and upset that I had beat you to the finish line.
I’d like to briefly describe how I, a slow yet steady tortoise, was able to
get there fast than you, a quick and nimble hare. You seemed to grossly
underestimate my determination when I set my mind to do something.
This is probably why you decided that you could take a little nap or two
during the time of the race. While you were resting though, I was still
diligently pushing on with only the hope of completing the race (which
was a difficult task for me) in mind. Because you believed so strongly
that I was weak and would fail you were lazy and not at your best,
while I who also thought you would probably win gave my personal
BEST to the effort. So I guess when I saw you sleeping by that stone and
crept on past you as quietly as I possibly could I was able to get a good
strong lead in the race. Sorry you overslept and couldn’t make it to the
finish line in time to stop my “under-dog” victory, but that’s what
happens when you are over cocky and you underestimate your
competition. Hope you learned a lesson on ALWAYS BRINGING YOUR “A”
GAME because I did and I won. Feel free to email me if you need any
tips on how to always give it your all.
Good Luck with your races in the future,
Terrance the Tortoise
Ttortoisewontherace@watchitonyoutube.com
Role: Differentiated Instruction
Audience: Teachers
Format: Rap
Topic: Why Am I Important?
The call me DI
I can make your class fly
Students come in all sizes and shapes
Let those students read, put down them tapes
Some practices you just shouldn’t keep
They are puttin’ them kids to sleep
No two students learn alike
If you do DI you class will be like
Oooh , Aaah, the teacher can teach
Not only that but you will reach
So many students that you hadn’t before
Everybody jump to the floor
They call me DI
I can make you class fly
If you start others will follow
Have the kids act it out or build a model
They call me DI
I can make your class fly.
Google Search- Activity 2
1. Conduct a Google search and identify one web site you want to share with
participants on RAFTS. Once you locate your site, you should record the URL and
write it on the flip chart.
2. Part 2 of this activity is that your post a RAFT Strip you found while doing your
searchs that you want to share with the participants. On the same flipchart you
posted your URL, you should post the role, audience, format, topic ...see example
below:
ROLE: Zero
AUDIENCE: Whole Number
FORMAT: Campaign Speech
TOPIC: Importance of number 0
RAFT Rubric- Activity 3
1. Read the document “What is a Rubric?”
2. Using the Rubric form complete it and score the rubric you wrote in the first
activity and reflect on how you would improve the rubric to use in your classroom.
Teacher Created RAFTS- Activity 4
1. Select a unit you teach.
2. Determine the learning goals you want students to achieve.
3. Develop one RAFT strip that would lead students to an understanding of the
topic.
4. Complete the blank RAFT form.
5. Reflect on the learning experience of designing a RAFT.
Examples
Role
Audience
Format
Topic
The crown
Caesar
e-mail
Refusing 3 times
poem
Why you had to
hurt me?
Portia thigh knife
Artemidoro
us
Caesar
Text message The conspiracy
Calpurnia
Caesar
song
Cassius
Brutus
rap
Don’t go to the
Capitol
Why Caesar must
die
Example
Role
Audience
Format
Topic
Radius
Diameter
Poem
How are we alike?
Diameter
Radius
Letter
How are we different?
Circle
Square/rectange
Song
How are we alike?
Circumference
area
Email
How are we different?
Text
What makes me
important?
Pi
circumference/area
•
Example
For the purposes of this assignment, students will adopt the role of a typical colonist.
They will be allowed to choose to a role or point of view from a list. Example role
choices are:
•
religious minister or missionary,
•
laborer or servant,
•
farmer,
•
tradesperson.
•
Sample Roles:
New England fisherman
Maryland cobbler or Blacksmith
Virginia indentured farm laborer
Quaker minister
Pennsylvania wheat farmer
South Carolina tobacco farmer
The student will write a letter or a diary entry for relatives back in Europe describing
both the positive aspects and hardships of life as an early European settler of the United
States.
Role: Early United States Colonist in a New England, Middle, or Southern Colony
Audience: Relatives and friends back in Europe
Format: Letter or Diary Entry
Topic: Joys and Hardships of Life in one of the 13 Colonies
You miss
100%
of the shots
you never
take!