RAFT

RAFT is a classroom strategy that focuses on several of the important aspects of writing to help develop good writers and give structure to struggling writers. This strategy is used to direct students' thinking about several different parts of the writing process, and it can be used at any point in the lesson or curriculum. RAFT stands for the following: role, audience, format, and topic. This classroom strategy can be used in any content area. Often times I have students that just begin writing and don't think about their audience or their purpose for writing. The RAFT will require them to put thought into their writing before putting information down on paper. Several students also need the structure that is provided by the RAFT in order to write a cohesive essay. It forces the student to think about who or what they are as a writer, to whom are they writing, in what format are they writing, and what are they writing about and why. This strategy should be modeled for the students, and they should be given a few prompts to practice as a class using the RAFT so they can see the different responses to the same prompt.