California Gold Rush RAFT Creative Writing Project + Graphic Organizers + Rubric

The California Gold Rush R.A.F.T. Creative Writing Project is an excellent assignment to use to wrap up a lesson about this important moment in American history and California history.

This R.A.F.T. is also a great idea if you wish to make a unit multidisciplinary: you can combine social studies and language arts into a fun, challenging creative writing project!

What is a R.A.F.T., you might ask? R.A.F.T. is an acronym for a powerful writing strategy that stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic.

R.A.F.T.s provide rigor, flexibility, and variety. A R.A.F.T. can be implemented in all content areas, thus making it an excellent Writing Across the Curriculum resource.

Young writers might pursue one of several genres or types of writing to create one of several products including a letter, a television commercial, a journal entry, and several more.

I define this further in the packet.

This packet includes:
(1) the R.A.F.T. assignment sheet;
(2) a Ready your R.A.F.T. graphic organizer;
(3) a Show, Don’t Tell graphic organizer;
(4) a Planning My First Draft graphic organizer;
(5) a Revising My Draft graphic organizer;
(6) a Peer Review Checklist;
(7) a Grading Rubric;
(8) and a Ticket-Out-the-Door summarizing exit slip.

Please see the preview!

Why are RAFTS wonderful for reading comprehension assessment and writing projects?

(1) They require higher-order thinking skills: students must role-play as the character they choose and utilize unique character traits to
write a convincing response.

(2) They are extremely difficult to plagiarize or copy from the Internet. This is NOT a basic report. Students must synthesize key details and create a brand new piece of writing.

(3) As a result, students will emerge from the writing project with a much better understanding of the assigned reading. After all, they must demonstrate mastery in the project.