Creating a RAFT - A Teaching Strategy

Are your students adrift when it comes to developing their writing skills? Why not throw them a raft!  

Rafting adds excitement to learning!

RAFT is a strategy that helps develop creative writing skills, and helps students practice writing for different audiences.

What is a RAFT?

When writers use RAFT techniques, they look at each element of a sentence and use those elements to create a unique perspective. That perspective helps during creative writing. This is how writers will learn how to write for different audiences.

Consider the letters of the word RAFT:

• R - the role  (are you an astronaut, a kitten, a molecule)
• A - audience (are you addressing  a parent, the principal)
• F - format (journal entry, letter, poem, poster, brochure)
• T - topic (what are you writing about?)

How do we use this strategy?

The best way to introduce this strategy is to use it as a whole class exercise.

1 -  Explain each letter of RAFT to your students as an important element to your writing.

2 -  Offer an example of each element

role: a Revolutionary War soldier

audience: your family at home

format: a letter 

topic: what is happening during the Battle of Bunker Hill

3 -Show a completed sentence after the RAFT elements have been put together

This is the  constructed sentence: 

 As a Revolutionary War soldier, write a letter to your family at home that describes what is happening during the Battle of Bunker Hill.

4 - Give students another example with each element identified, and together with the class construct the sentence.

5 - Now give students the constructed example, and see if they can identify each element of RAFT 

4 - Have students choose one of the constructed examples and complete the activity.

When do we use this strategy?

What you want your students to achieve?

to activate prior knowledge - use RAFT before reading

to engage students during a lesson - use RAFT during reading

to assess content knowledge - use RAFT after reading 

This can be a whole class activity, small group activity or individual activity. You can also offer students a choice of RAFT activities by placing several Roles, Audiences, Formats and Topic options in a table. Use your creativity, but if you are at a loss, simply google RAFT strategy, and you will find lots of examples. I found this example for science journaling from www.readingrockets.org: 

Role	Audience	Format	Topic
Plant parts	Plant	Picture	We’re made for each other
Roots	Stem, flower,  leaf, seeds	Letter	You’d be lost without me
Flower	Stem, flower,  leaf, seeds	Ad	I’m more than just a pretty face

Have fun rafting! 

  Queen Bee

Pinterest + Teaching Channel = Great Teaching Resources

Are you looking for a few good ideas? Well if you haven't tried Pinterest or the Teaching Channel, you're missing out on  great resources for your classroom!

Check out what teachers are sharing on Pinterest and the Teaching Channel!

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a social network that shares information by way of interesting images. It requires a free subscription, but once you are on it, these are things you can do:

• Scroll through loads of different images. 
• You can save information or images that you like by  creating   boards for later reference. 
• Once you've opened a "pin," you can find additional information and resources.  That's where you'll find a host of information at your fingertips.  
• There's a search bar that you can use to focus your search of specific resources and strategies.
• You can even link to Pinterest from this page (click on "follow me on Pinterest") to find the boards that I've developed.

URL: pinterest.com

What is the Teaching Channel?

This is a wonderful resource that is created for teachers by teachers. It is a free subscription site that offers videos tailored to your subject and grade. Here's what it includes:

• Video clips: These are developed by educational experts and teachers. The clips  include discussion points that can be used to generate active discussion and professional development.
•  Blog: Tchrs' Voice is a blog that is dedicated to teachers' concerns. It is moderated by several noted professionals, including Pat Wesley, Sarah Brown Wessling, and Lily Jones. 
• Newsletter: The Tch Newsletter gives informational updates on new videos, ideas on lesson planning, and info on the Common Core and the Teaching Channel itself.
• Teachers' Workplace/Notebook: An area set up to save videos and notes that you want to refer to at a later time. 
• Teachers' Roll Call: Once you register your subscription to Teaching Channel, you join a pictorial listing of teacher members. Last week, the 100,000 member joined the ranks! 

URL: www.teachingchannel.org

  

Whip Around - A Teaching Strategy

How about a strategy that will snap your students into focus, and provide an easily planned and delivered formative assessment?

The whip-around strategy is quck and easy to use!

Teachers need a way to check on student understanding, and be able to do it with the least strain on planning and lesson intrusion possible. Whip-around to the rescue!

What is the whip-around strategy?

The whip-around strategy is a quick gauge of how your students are understanding topics. It can be used as a formative assessment because it monitors achievement. It can also be used as a check of understanding, because it provides a snapshot of what your students are absorbing in the lesson.

How does this strategy work?
Just follow these steps:

1. Present a topic to your students. Ensure that you are offering students enough support to understand the topic.  
2. Provide guided examples where you show students how to address the topic or solve the problem
3. Have the whole group practice the skill or solve a problem together, based on what  you have just presented to them. 
4. Now create a whole class question that has several responses. Explain the strategy to the students (no "gotcha") and give students a couple of minutes to create their answer. 
5. • Examples of questions:
   • What are the parts of an insect?
   • How did Scout express her feelings about Bo?
   • What can a hurricane impact the economy of a city?
   • Using the periodic table name an element from the halogen family?
6. Ask for an answer to this question as you travel up and down the seats - have each child provide their idea of the best answer for the question. No pauses, no judgments, just quick answers from each student. If there are repeats, that's okay (it will reinforce the information.)
7. Afterwards review what has been said- clarify any misunderstandings. If a misunderstanding has been repeated by several students, then you must reteach the skill to the class. If a single student is not clear, then you need to support that student individually.

There you have it. You have just whipped around the classroom and assessed student understanding with one single question. 

Why should you use this strategy?
This is an easy strategy that will give you critical information about what students know in a quick way. You have an idea of who is paying attention, who is following the lesson, and who is struggling. If this is presented as a formative assessment, you have information about how each child has mastered the information, and you can use it as an oral assessment. 

Quick. Simple. Easy.

What strategies do you use for a quick assessment?

  Queen Bee