RAFT: A Reading Strategy & Jigsaw Group Presentation

A teaching strategy I use to maximize the learning potential of all students is one where different types of learners can shine whether they are visual, oral, or kinesthetic learners. Often something like a role play activity combines all of these aspects. I’ve done a RAFT (role-audience-format-topic) activity in my U.S. History classes that I modified from an activity my mentor teacher did and can be here: http://www.readingquest.org/strat/. After reading about three early African American philosophers, I have students pretend that a debate between Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey will be taking place in our town on the topic of how to make freedom real for African Americans after the Civil War. I divide the class into groups assigning each group one of the philosophers. Students each take a role to develop their philosophical argument with one student responsible for writing their argument as if they were that philosopher, one student responsible for making a flyer or brochure advertizing the event aimed at the audience they hope to attract and one student in the group presenting their argument verbally in a debate. Although each student has a specific role they must work together to create the whole piece. Three groups present at a time so that each of the three philosophers presents his argument each round. I just have the 3 students who present do so in turns, like a lawyer's closing statements in a trial. That way they don't get out of hand interrupting each other. But I have students in the audience vote on which team was the most convincing and which philosopher had the best plan for making freedom real. Since it is in small groups of 3-4 students you will have rounds of students presenting. There will be some repetition but as long as students don't copy what other groups said, that is okay. This project takes a few days from start to finish. It could be used in any Social Studies class where multiple points of view on an issue can be represented by individual figures.