When
I think of a raft, I think of a little makeshift boat you float around the
ocean in if you’re unlucky enough to get shipwrecked. Pirates and Gilligan’s
Island come to mind. Not teaching or designing lessons. But apparently, RAFT
(I’m not shouting, it’s an acronym) means something very different to
educators. You see, RAFT (or CRAFT, if you’d like to go a little deeper) stands
for context, role, audience, format, and topic. It is a widely accepted tool
for creating writing assignments that are meaningful, engaging, and well
constructed.
Wait
a minute. Writing assignments can be engaging? If they are thoughtfully and
carefully constructed, absolutely. Creating an engaging and significant writing
assignment is accomplished by pulling students into the lesson. No student will
ever become interested in the collapse of the Soviet Union if they are forced
to write a lengthy research paper about it. Asking them to assume the role of a
resident of an Eastern Bloc country writing to a family member about their feelings
about the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, will be infinitely more
interesting and relevant to them. They will feel involved in the history and be
prompted to think about the ramifications of such an important event, rather
than just regurgitating facts, dates, and names to you in essay form.
As
a future history teacher, one of my biggest fears is getting that question that
every educator dreads: so what? Who cares? Why does this matter? This is a
sentiment that students will echo across every discipline, but it seems that
there are some in which it is more frequent. Math and science, of course, have
very tangible, real world applications. Though students may not see it clearly
at first, they can usually be made to see it fairly easily. History, on the
other hand, is a subject where that significance and relevance is harder to
clarify.
How
then do you make students understand that what happened fifty, two hundred, or
even a thousand years ago is relevant and important to them? You must insert them
into the historical narrative. Just as they can be asked to consider the
effects of science on modern medicine and technology, (things which almost
undoubtedly affect their daily lives) so they can be encouraged to put
themselves into the midst of events or times far removed from their own. They
can be asked to consider the feelings and motivations of, as well as effects on
people living during different historical time periods. Once this is done, we
can then go about drawing parallels to the present? For instance, how does the
spirit of innovation that burgeoned with the Industrial Revolution still exist
in today’s world? How is the present echoed in the past?
Making
history relevant to my students is simultaneously my biggest goal and my
biggest concern. I understand that it is likely a goal and concern of every
educator, but in my personal opinion, that is the only way that history can
come alive. I have had more than a few history teachers who made no attempt or
a very poor one at making history relevant. I was fortunate enough to have the
resilience that encouraged me to remain engaged, but many students don’t. I
think that infinitely helpful RAFT format will be an invaluable tool for
reaching my students and making them see history not just as a series of
disconnected events that happened a long time ago, but as a series of tightly
related events that shaped the world as it is today.
I thought this little graphic organizer was kind of neat:
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