Today, I am on Anne Beninghof’s Ideas for Educators site to share a really great snapshot of the RAFT strategy. RAFT is a popular approach to providing students with differentiated assignments. RAFT stands for Role, Audience, Format and Topic. The teacher determines a topic (e.g., defend participation in a food chain) and then uses RAFT to provide students with ideas for creatively demonstrating their understanding of that topic. By using this strategy, teachers encourage students to write creatively, to consider a topic from a new perspective, and to gain practice writing for different audiences. So, using the example above, a student might write from the ROLE of a great white shark to the AUDIENCE of humans using a FORMAT of a top ten list to defend their participation in the food chain (e.g., discuss why they have to eat seals).
I like RAFT because it teachers can use it to meet many goals at once. First of all, it provides opportunities to provide choice in the classroom, which is one of the easiest ways to differentiate. In addition, the structure allows educators to give different learners different assignments based on their needs, interests, or abilities. For example, you may expect some students to create multi-step letters, while others are asked to create drawings, cartoons, lists, or photo essays.
Learn more about RAFT by clicking over to Anne’s site. She uses her professional page to share and promote the use of differentiation techniques like this one so visit for this idea and stay to explore a few more!
About Paula Kluth
