Teaching Students How to Write for the Real World with RAFT

Writing is one of the most important skills you will cover in the classroom. This is because students take writing lessons with them for the rest of their educational careers and even into adulthood and in their jobs. It’s very important that you lay a solid foundation for writing strategy and good writing technique so that your students can learn and take this with them for a long time to come.

R.A.F.T. is a writing strategy that you might consider implementing in your classroom. This method can help your students focus on purposeful, goal-oriented writing. Here, we will take a look at what each of the letters in R.A.F.T. acronym stands for and how to implement it.

R – Role of the Writer

The R in R.A.F.T. teaches students to consider what their role as a writer is. To help them learn to write through a different perspective, you might encourage them to write a letter through the eyes of a musician or a dentist.

A – Audience

It’s important for students to learn to write with an audience in mind. You might encourage them to write a letter to the president, the CEO of a company of their choice or a peer. This will help them understand how their voice and the content they write will change.

F – Format

Students should have the opportunity to explore different formats of writing. They will get the opportunity to see the differences between writing an article for a hypothetical magazine versus writing a letter or a diary entry.

T – Topic

Before students even begin writing, they should have a good feel for what it is that they’ll be writing about. The topic is essential to get started in writing.

So, how do you incorporate the R.A.F.T. strategy in your classroom? You can start by writing the acronym on the board and help your students come up with different perspectives of who the narrow could be, who the audience might be, what format they could use to convey their message, and what topic they might be writing about. You can also encourage them to do journal entries with the R.A.F.T. message and by having them complete writing assignments that allow them to use this writing strategy.

Are there any tips you’d add for other teachers trying to use R.A.F.T. in their own writing instruction and curriculum? What do you think are the main benefits of using this writing strategy with your students?