CRAFT Writing (Strong Ch. 6)

         This chapter contains some great writing information that I will definitely be implementing in my future classroom.  This chapter specifically looks at the type of writing that would be most beneficial in a classroom, while keeping the student motivation at a high rate. We need to reduce the risk of creating non-writers in the future (Strong p. 95). I do think this is an issue we are having in education at the moment.  I think writing is often forgotten about, but it is one of the most important things we can teach our students.  I am an aspiring ELA teacher, but I don’t think that the responsibility should be placed solely on us to teach writing; that responsibility should be shared equally throughout content areas.  Strong introduces us to writing assignments that not only can be used in an ELA classroom but in all other content areas.  More specially, Strong spends the bulk of the chapter introducing and expanding on the CRAFT format of writing.

            The first part that I thought was useful was the ten principles of designing a writing assignment. I must admit, I didn’t realize how much thought goes into creative an effective writing assignment. Now does a writing assignment have contain each of the principles, or if not, which are the most important to incorporate?  I would argue that principle 9 is important because I believe giving students choices always leads to more motivated students. Also, the majority of the article is concerned with principle 8, which is, “think of CRAFT whenever designing your assignments” (Strong p.99).

A festive example of a RAFT

            I was aware of the RAFT format of writing prior to reading this chapter, but this was my first time looking at CRAFT. Basically, the only difference is that with CRAFT, we, the teachers, are providing a context to the assignment.  I look at this as giving the assignment a backstory. This chapter models different types of CRAFT assignments showing how to use each aspect of the format.  All of the examples start with an introductory paragraph, presenting a scenario.  From there, students will have an assigned Role, they will be speaking to a specific Audience, and they will be executing this writing through a specific Format, and will be assigned a Topic.  I do really enjoy this concept/format of writing because it allows writing to be a bit more creative than a traditional five-paragraph essay paper.  For instance, this chapter shows students creating brochures and menus as a CRAFT writing piece.

            With the CRAFT assignment, the directions should be explicitly stated, and the grading rubric should be simple and not overbearing (Strong). While looking at the rubrics, provided with the example assignments, I was amazed at how simple they really were. Some rubrics only consisted of four criteria to be assessed on a scale of 1-3. I was under the impression that a CRAFT writing assignment would be considered a high stakes writing piece, but the simplicity of the rubrics suggest otherwise.  It seems more like an in-class assignment that entails a lot of work.  Maybe, that is my problem? Maybe, a high stakes assignment can be assed with a simple grading system.  Well, to be honest I really don’t care for rubrics anyways in terms of assigning a final grade. I think grading should be more holistic, but that is another conversation within itself.

            It was great to see all of the examples provided for this CRAFT assignment, but I felt slighted a little bit at the lack of ELA examples.  Thank goodness that I am a creative person because I already got some cool CRAFT ideas of my own.  In my opinion, I think the CRAFT writing assignments allows for students to actively engage in their writing. They are assuming roles that may be foreign to them, and taking on topics that may equally be as foreign. This assignment requires a tremendous amount of research before the writing can begin (Strong). That is the thing that I love about the assignment because it is researched based writing presented in a more appealing way for students.