Designing R-A-F-T Writing Assignments

Denise Burson
Dec 07, 2009

Effective writing assignments enable students to write fluently and purposefully for an audience. R-A-F-T actvitities can help teachers identify and incorporate the elements of an effective writing assignment.

What is R-A-F-T?

The R-A-F-T strategy is a system to help students understand their role as a writer, the audience they will address, the varied formats for writing, and the expected content. The R-A-F-T strategy was developed by Nancy Vandervanter, an English teacher from the Montana Writing Project (Santa, Havens, Nelson, Danner, Scalf, & Scalf, 1988). It offers students a way to gain a better understanding of content topics and subjects as they write.

R-A-F-T is used as a post-reading strategy, or as part of the drafting process during writing instruction. R-A-F-T is structured to help students organize their thoughts on a topic, elaborate on it, and create a thoughtful piece of writing that expresses their understanding (Strayer & Strayer, 2007).

It is an acronym that stands for:

• Role of the Writer - Who are you as the writer? A warrior? A homeless person? An auto mechanic?
• Audience - To whom are you writing? A friend? Your teacher? Readers of a newspaper?
• 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? To plead for a re-test?

What is the purpose?

The purpose is to give students more control over their writing. It is a new way to think about their writing assignment. A R-A-F-T can be the way to bring together students' understanding of main ideas, organization, elaboration, and coherence.

How to use R-A-F-T in your classroom?

Step one: Explain to the students that all writers have to consider four components before every writing assignment including role, audience, format, and topic. Tell them that they are going to structure their writing around these elements. (It may be helpful to display the elements on a chart)

Step two: Display a completed R-A-F-T example on the overhead, and discuss the key elements as a class.

Step three: Then, model, and "think aloud" another example of R-A-F-T with the support of the class. Br ainstorm additional topic ideas, and write down the suggestions listing roles, audiences, formats, and strong verbs associated with each topic.

Step four: Assign students to work with their partner and have them "put their heads together" to write about a topic using the R-A-F-T format.

Step five: Circulate among the pairs to provide assistance as needed. Then have them share their completed assignments with the class.

Step six: After students become more proficient in developing this style of writing, have them generate R-A-F-T assignments of their own based on current topics studied in class.

Example: Civil War R-A-F-T Writing Assignment

From the list above, choose a row for your writing assignment. Your goal is to portray your role accurately using the given format. Think of how your role would be feeling about the given topic. You must stay in character, even if your role's point-of-view is different from your own. Remember to use language appropriate to the time period but utilize proper conventions, voice, and creativity.

For more ideas check out the LEARNING-FOCUSED Writing Resources in the Literacy Collection.