How do you integrate RAFT and SAVI with other instructional models or frameworks, such as UDL, PBL, or SIOP?

1 What are RAFT and SAVI?

RAFT and SAVI are two strategies that can help you design differentiated tasks and activities for your students. RAFT stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic. It is a way of creating writing assignments that vary the perspective, purpose, genre, and content of the task. For example, you can ask your students to write a letter from the role of a soldier to the audience of their family, in the format of a diary entry, about the topic of their experience in the war. SAVI stands for Somatic, Auditory, Visual, and Intellectual. It is a way of creating learning experiences that appeal to different sensory modalities and cognitive styles. For example, you can ask your students to act out a scene from a story, listen to a podcast, create a poster, and discuss their opinions.

2 How do RAFT and SAVI align with UDL?

UDL, or Universal Design for Learning, is a framework that guides you to design instruction that is accessible, engaging, and flexible for all learners. It is based on three principles: representation, expression, and engagement. RAFT and SAVI can help you apply these principles by offering multiple ways for your students to access the information, demonstrate their understanding, and interact with the content. For example, you can use RAFT to provide different options for expression, such as writing a poem, a speech, or a comic strip. You can use SAVI to provide different options for representation, such as watching a video, reading a text, or playing a game.

3 How do RAFT and SAVI support PBL?

PBL, or Project-Based Learning, is a model that engages your students in authentic, meaningful, and collaborative projects that address real-world problems or questions. It is based on four elements: driving question, inquiry process, final product, and public audience. RAFT and SAVI can help you enhance these elements by adding variety, creativity, and challenge to your projects. For example, you can use RAFT to craft a driving question that invites different perspectives, such as "How would you persuade the mayor to support your environmental campaign?" You can use SAVI to scaffold the inquiry process by providing different resources, activities, and feedback that suit your students' preferences and needs.

4 How do RAFT and SAVI complement SIOP?

SIOP, or Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol, is a framework that helps you teach academic content and language skills to English learners. It is based on eight components: preparation, building background, comprehensible input, strategies, interaction, practice and application, lesson delivery, and review and assessment. RAFT and SAVI can help you implement these components by providing differentiated and scaffolded instruction that supports your students' language development and content mastery. For example, you can use RAFT to differentiate the review and assessment tasks by allowing your students to choose the role, audience, format, and topic that best demonstrate their learning. You can use SAVI to scaffold the comprehensible input by using gestures, visuals, audio, and questions that clarify and reinforce the key concepts and vocabulary.

5 How do you integrate RAFT and SAVI in your classroom?

Integrating RAFT and SAVI in your classroom does not have to be complicated or time-consuming. You can start by using them as tools to brainstorm and generate ideas for differentiated tasks and activities. You can also use them as criteria to evaluate and revise your existing tasks and activities. You can also involve your students in the process by asking them to create their own RAFT and SAVI tasks and activities, or by giving them some choice and voice in selecting the ones that interest them and challenge them. The key is to use RAFT and SAVI as flexible and adaptable strategies that enhance your differentiated instruction, not as rigid or prescriptive formulas that limit your creativity or diversity.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?