How to Use RAFT Writing Activity in Classrooms

Creative writing is one of the best techniques to get students engaged in a text. The RAFT activity encourages your students to visualize themselves as the fictional or historical characters in the designated text and write a piece to reflect those characters' needs and wants. Students enjoy the exercise as a break from monotonous classes, and teachers get a chance to see how well their students are grasping the material. This assignment may be written during class time or used as a homework assignment to share the next day.

Things You'll Need

• Notebook paper or class journals
• Required texts

Instructions

1. Instruct students to choose the elements of their RAFT. Choose the "Role" of the writer first. Each student looks through the assigned text and decides on a character or role they want to portray. For example, in a social studies class studying Egypt, students can choose the pharaoh, an Egyptian god or goddess, a temple priest, a slave, a rich wife or a revered cat. Encourage the students to stretch their imaginations.

2. Students now choose the "Audience" for the piece they will write. Ask the students who the pharaoh would need to write to, who the slaves might want to communicate with or who an Egyptian god would want to write to. Again, tell them to be as creative as possible but to use the information in the text as inspiration.

3. Choose a "Format" for the RAFT writing piece. Choose any type of text, but be sure it makes sense with the role and audience students have chosen. Possible formats could include a love letter, an obituary, a speech, a thank-you note, a temple wall carving or a prayer. Tell the students to think beyond a simple letter or prose piece to find an engaging format for the RAFT.

4. Choose a "Topic" to write the RAFT about. Ask students questions like "Why is the pharaoh writing a speech?" or "Why is the queen writing a love letter?" Remind students that they should each choose their own roles, audiences, formats and topics.

5. Instruct the students to write their RAFT. You may give them class time or send the RAFT home as a homework assignment. Remind students to proofread the creative writing pieces, check punctuation and refine their tones.

6. Ask each student to read their RAFT aloud to the class. Encourage the rest of the class to take notes about historical points they learn from other students' RAFTs.

Tips & Warnings

• Share all the students' RAFTs because each one highlights a different character and point of view. Display the RAFTs for other students and parents to see.