raft assignment pdf

RAFT Writing Template

About this printout

Students can utilize this printout to organize their writing as they learn to use the RAFT strategy .  This printout enables students to clearly define their role, audience, format, and topic for writing.

Teaching with this printout

More ideas to try, related resources.

By using this printout to organize their writing, students learn to respond to writing prompts that require them to write creatively, to consider a topic from a different perspective, and to gain practice writing for different audiences.

The four categories of focus for a RAFT include:

• R ole of the Writer: Who are you as the writer? A movie star? The President? A plant?
• A udience: To whom are you writing? A senator?  Yourself? A company?
• F ormat: In what format are you writing? A diary entry? A newspaper?  A love letter?
• T opic: What are you writing about?

Before having students write their own RAFT, use this printout to model how students should use this technique.  Discuss with your students the basic premise of the content for which you’d like to write, but allow students to help you pick the role, audience, format, and topic to write about.  Allow student input and creativity as you craft your piece of writing.  Have an in-depth discussion specifically about why you chose the different categories that you decided on ( R ole, A udience, F ormat, T opic).  Model a think-aloud about why having a certain role and audience might make your stance or ideas about a certain topic different and may alter your writing style and, therefore, your format. See the Strategy Guide titled Using the RAFT Writing Strategy for more information and ideas pertaining to this technique.

• Give students a writing prompt (for which you have already chosen the role, audience, format, and topic) and have students react to the prompt either individually or in small groups, using this printout. It works best if at first, all students react to the same prompt so the students can learn from the varied responses of their classmates.  Hold a class discussion about how students created their personal version of the assignment.
• As students become comfortable in reacting to RAFT prompts, you can create more than one prompt for students to respond to after a reading, lesson, or unit.  Or, you may choose to give students a list of choices for each area and let them pick and choose their role, audience, format, and topic.
• Eventually, students may choose a role, audience, format, and topic entirely on their own.  Varied prompts allow students to compare and contrast multiple perspectives, deepening their understanding of the content.
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A Guide to the R.A.F.T. Writing Strategy Across Content Areas

Why is RAFT writing one of the most effective writing strategies, particularly across all content areas and subjects? Before we share how it enables fluency and purpose, incorporates the elements of effective writing, provides students with a choice that is on grade level, and engages students to explain what they know and elaborate, let’s first talk about how different writing styles contribute to learning and understanding.

How Writing Pulls Back the Curtain

Heard often in classrooms: “I know the answer but I can’t explain it!” The problem here is a student who suffers from messy thinking and the simple answer to clearing that confusion might be writing.

Research has proven that writing crystallizes cloudy thinking, yet teachers often miss opportunities to provide students a venue for becoming aware of what they know and do not know. Another missed opportunity arises from a misunderstanding of types of writers.

What many mistake as writer’s block is actually a block in thinking.

Dianne Boehm simplifies this concept in her book Mozartians, Beethovians, and the Art of Teaching Writing . She describes writers as either Mozartians or Beethovians:

• Beethovians are discoverers who discover what they think during the writing process. They actually generate their ideas as they write. These writers are very messy writers who write in a non-directed way. This writing almost always needs a great deal of revision.
• Mozartians , by contrast, are planners. They mentally compose before they ever put pen to paper, working in a linear way focusing on what comes next. As they write they tend to recall what they know and organize that information as they write. Their revision process isn’t nearly as broad because they have mentally composed, revised, and edited throughout the composition process. 

Either type of writer is using writing in a way that contributes to learning and understanding.

Effective Writing in the Classroom

Regardless of which type of writer you or your students are, the implications are the same. Writing is the ideal vehicle for getting at what students understand and don’t understand. Junior Teague wrote that “nothing is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood.” All teachers have an amusing personal anecdote that illustrates the truth of this statement. The stories lose their humor, however, when we are honest about how much misinformation escapes our notice . Students are gifted at staying below the radar of our formative assessments, but writing pulls back the curtain.

Writing can help content area teachers in their efforts to provide students with opportunities to connect prior knowledge. It provides an ideal vehicle for summarizing strategies that benefit both the student and the teacher with shared insights to understanding. Writing helps students organize their thinking, create new knowledge, and make tentative ideas become permanent ones.

R.A.F.T.: The Best Writing Strategy For All Content Areas

Of course, there are numerous writing strategies to choose from.  However, in my opinion, the best writing strategy is the R.A.F.T. strategy.

Effective writing enables students to write fluently and purposefully for an audience. R.A.F.T. can help you identify and incorporate the elements of effective writing . The R.A.F.T. strategy engages students in explaining what they know about a topic and then elaborating. In addition, it provides students with a choice that is on grade level.

What is the R.A.F.T. Strategy?

The R.A.F.T. stands for:

• Helps the writer decide on point of view and voice.
• Reminds the writer that he must communicate ideas to someone else.
• Helps the writer determine content and style. 
• Helps the writer organize ideas and employ the conventions of format, such as  letters, interviews, and story problems. 
• Helps the writer focus on main ideas. 

R.A.F.T. Procedure: 

• Think about the concepts or processes that you want students to learn as they read a selected passage. Consider how writing in an interesting way may enhance students’ understanding of the topic. 
• Brainstorm possible roles students could assume in their writing.
• Decide who the audience would be as well as the format for writing.
• After students have finished reading, identify the role, audience, format, and topic (RAFT) for the writing. Assign the same role for all students or let them choose from several different roles.

R.A.F.T. Scoring Rubric: 

Table of Contents – R.A.F.T Writing Examples

• 1st Grade – ELA
• 2nd Grade Math – Money
• 2nd Grade Science – Plants
• 3rd Grade ELA – Charlotte’s Web
• 3rd Grade ELA – Character Perspective
• 5th Grade Math – Decimals
• 4th Grade Science – Astronomy
• 6th Grade Math – Geometry
• 7th Grade Science – Invasive Species
• 8th Grade Social Studies – Taxation
• 9th Grade ELA – Inferencing
• 9th Grade ELA – Anaylzying Viewpoints
• 10th Grade Science – Anaylzying Viewpoints
• Subject Area: Social Studies
• Subject Area: Science
• Subject Area: Math
• Subject Area: ELA

1 st Grade RAFT Example for English/Language Arts: How to Write a “How To” Paragraph

2 nd grade raft example for math: how do people pay for things, 2 nd grade raft example for science: lesson on living things: plants, 3 rd grade raft example for english/language arts: charlotte’s web.

• Role: You will assume the role of Wilbur or Charlotte.
• Audience: The audience is “himself” or “herself.”
• Format: In reading this story, we discussed the unusual friendship between a pig named Wilbur and a barn spider named Charlotte. When Wilbur was in danger of being slaughtered by the farmer, Charlotte writes messages praising Wilbur, such as “Some Pig” in her web to persuade the farmer to let him live. The format you will use is a personal journal or diary. Assume or pretend that your chosen character talked things over in his or her head, as the action of the story played out. What was he or she thinking? How did it feel? What did he or she think that the farmer should do? How can you describe these things? When you assume the role of Wilbur or Charlotte, you will be using words to describe how you feel—you will become the character.
• Topic: The actions taken to save Wilbur from slaughter.
• Writing Task: Write a response in which you assume the role of Wilbur or Charlotte. You must decide what you think he or she was thinking and feeling, and then describe it in detail. Use specific references to the text. You should have at least four or more references to the text and at least three quotations. Your response should be at least five paragraphs long.

3 rd Grade RAFT Writing Example for ELA: Character Perspective

5th Grade RAFT Example for Math: Decimal

4th grade raft example for science: astronomy, 6 th grade raft example for geometry lesson: types of angles, 7 th grade raft writing example for science: invasive species, 8 th grade raft writing example for social studies: taxation without representation, 9 th grade raft example lesson on inference using john steinbeck’s, “the pearl”.

• Role: You will assume the role of Juana, wife of Kino in John Steinbeck’s, The Pearl.
• Audience: The audience is “herself.”
• Format: In reading the novel, we considered the “Song of Evil” and the “Song of the Family;” now, you are to create Juana’s “Song to Herself.” The format you will use is a personal journal or diary. Assume or pretend that Juana communicated with herself, talked things over in her head, as the action of the story played out. What was she thinking? How did it feel? What did she think her family should do? Now, how can you describe these things? When you assume the role of Juana, you will be using words to describe how you feel—you will be singing the “Song of Herself.”
• Topic : The time you will use is during the action of The Pearl and speculation on what happened afterward—what did the family do after they threw the “pearl of the world” back into the ocean?
• The Writing Task: Write a response in which you assume the role of Juana, wife of Kino in John Steinbeck’s The Pearl. You must decide what you think she was thinking and feeling, and then describe it in detail. Use specific references to the text. You should have at least seven references to the text and at least three quotations. You must also specifically mention all four of the essential questions, which is cake because Juana is an indigenous female in a sexist and racist culture that was neither fair nor just because those in power—including her husband—used it over the powerless, a group of which she is a member. Your response should be at least two typed double-spaced pages in 12 point font.

9 th Grade RAFT Example for ELA: Analyzing Viewpoints Lesson

Writing Task: There are many views on the use of alcohol and tobacco. They range from those vehemently against it to those who believe there should be no laws regulating it. It is important to be able to see and understand viewpoints different than our own. Although understanding does not mean agreeing, seeing the other side allows us to have a deeper understanding of the complexity of these social issues. Based on the US Health Department video we watched to complete your graphic organizer showing the research findings about short and long term consequences of alcohol and tobacco use, complete two of the following R.A.F.T. assignments. Choose one from A and B, and one from C and D. You will be graded based on the rubric displayed on the front board. Please look over the rubric before you begin.This will give you a clear picture of my expectations for this activity. Your R.A.F.T. will be due tomorrow as you enter the classroom.

10 th Grade RAFT Writing Example for Biology: Photosynthesis

Subject area examples, social studies, english/language arts, share this post:.

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Reading and Writing Strategies

RAFT Writing

The RAFT strategy encourages students to write creatively, consider a topic from a different perspective, and to gain practice writing for different audiences.

Download a Graphic Organizer

RAFT is a writing strategy that helps students understand their role as a writer, the audience they will address, the varied formats for writing, and the topic they’ll be writing about. 

• R ole of the Writer: Who are you as the writer? A pilgrim? A soldier? The President?
• A udience: To whom are you writing? A political rally? A potential employer?
• F ormat: In what format are you writing? A letter? An advertisement? A speech?
• T opic: What are you writing about?

Why use the RAFT strategy?

Students must think creatively and critically in order to respond to prompts, making RAFT a unique way for students to apply critical thinking skills about new information they are learning. RAFT writing can be used across disciplines as a universal writing approach.

How to create and use the strategy

• Walk students through the acronym RAFT and why it’s important to consider various perspectives when completing any writing assignment.
• Display a RAFT writing prompt to your class and model how you would write in response to the prompt.
• Have students react to another writing prompt individually, or in small groups. It works best if all students react to the same prompt so the class can learn from each other’s responses.
• As students become comfortable in reacting to RAFT prompts, you can create more than one prompt for students to respond to after reading, a lesson, or a unit of study. Varied prompts allow students to compare and contrast multiple perspectives, deepening their understanding of the content.

Sample RAFT prompts

R:  Citizen A:  Congress F:  Letter T:  Taxation

R:  Scout Finch  A:  Community of Monroeville, Alabama F:  Eulogy for Atticus Finch T:  Social Inequality

Strategy in action

For more RAFT prompts, review Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey’s compiled list of Picture Book RAFT prompts . You may also find a RAFT scoring rubric and additional RAFT examples helpful as you implement the RAFT strategy in your class. Now, let’s watch as a teacher uses the RAFT writing strategy in her science class.

Tips for success

• It’s important for students to learn how their writing may change for different perspectives. It’s helpful to show students examples of writings on the same topic and format but with different roles of the writer or audience.
• Once students are fluent using the RAFT strategy, they can take any topic and choose the role, audience, and format on their own.

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William S. Jewett (1821–1873) The Promised Land – The Grayson Family , 1850 Oil on canvas 50 3/4 x 64 in. (128.9 x 162.6 cm) Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection, 1999.79

Graphic Organizer: RAFT (Role, Audience, Format, Topic) Writing Strategies

Using raft writing strategies with artworks.

The RAFT (Role, Audience, Format, Topic) writing strategy, developed by Santa, Havens, and Valdes [1] , helps students understand their role as a writer and communicate their ideas clearly by developing a sense of audience and purpose in their writing. Works of art are rich sources of ideas and details for narrative and other kinds of writing. This RAFT strategy lends itself to use with works of art and to helping students develop their ideas and organize their approach before they begin to write.

In the example below, we added “questions to answer” to the RAFT matrix as a way to help students think through the components of this activity.

Download this material as a pdf for classroom use here .

RAFT activity: The Promised Land—The Grayson Family

Directions for teachers:

• Introduce students to the painting The Promised Land—The Grayson Family (or another work of art for which information is available). Have students read about it and discuss the story it tells.
• Show examples of ideas for the RAFT based on The Promised Land .
• Next, project the table below on the board. Ask students to pick a role from the chart, and identify an audience, format, topic, and questions for their written piece to answer.
• Give students a copy of the Role Development Chart worksheet  and have them complete it before they begin writing.

Ideas to get students started on their RAFT:

Audience: family member, friend back home, friend already living in the West, foreigner considering moving to America, oneself (diary), museum

Format: letter, newspaper story, song, poem, diary entry, advertisement poster, caption

Topic: traveling to California, the difference between home and the West, the land/resources of the West, hunting, setting up camp

Questions: How do I feel about my journey? What do we do next? Where will we live? What challenges do I face?

Role Development Chart

Before writing your piece take time to put yourself into the role you have selected. Think deeply about who you are in this role and what you want to include from your reading to make your writing credible. What perspective will you have on the issue you think is most important?

[1] Santa, C., Havens, L., & Valdes, B. (2004). Project CRISS: Creating Independence through Student-owned Strategies. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt.

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Browse Course Material

Course info.

• Dr. Katrina LaCurts

Departments

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

As Taught In

• Computer Design and Engineering
• Computer Networks
• Operating Systems
• Software Design and Engineering

Learning Resource Types

Computer system engineering, raft assignment.

For this recitation, you’ll be reading “ In Search of an Understandable Consensus Algorithm (PDF) ” by Diego Ongaro and John Ousterhout. This paper describes Raft, an algorithm for achieving distributed consensus. The paper contrasts Raft to an algorithm called Paxos: You do not need to know anything about Paxos to read this paper. Raft was designed to be more understandable than Paxos.

Before reading the paper, check out two very helpful websites, which have some useful visualizations:

• An introduction to distributed consensus
• A visualization of Raft

With those visualizations in mind, read the paper. Skip sections 5.4.3 and 7, and skim sections 9.1 and 9.2.

• The first four sections give background and motivation for Raft. Sections five and six are the primary technical sections.
• Fig. 2 is a good reference to come back to after you’ve read the paper. Don’t get stuck trying to memorize the entire table before you move onto page 5 of the paper; skip it, come back to it during your reading or at the end.

To check your understanding after reading:

• How does Raft handle the following three types of failures?: Leader failures, candidate or follower failures, and network partitions (a network partition means that one part of the cluster is unable to communicate with any machine in the other part).
• Take a look at figure 7. For each log, (a)-(f), what sequence of events might have led to that log?

Questions for Recitation

Before you come to this recitation , write up (on paper) a brief answer to the following (really—we don’t need more than a couple sentences for each question). 

Your answers to these questions should be in your own words , not direct quotations from the paper.

• In Raft, what is the leader’s function?
• How does the leader work?
• Why does Raft need a leader?

As always, there are multiple correct answers for each of these questions.

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