Gladiators and the Roman Colosseum RAFT Writing Project

Would you like to enliven ancient history with a fun, challenging writing project? The Gladiators of the Roman Colosseum RAFT Writing Project contains a RAFT writing project for the social studies classroom. This project may be used as a creative research project or as a summarizing assignment to end a unit of study on Caesar or Ancient Rome. **Students are also reminded in the instructions that the writing MUST be school-appropriate! ** What is a RAFT, you might ask? RAFT is an acronym for a powerful writing strategy that provides rigor, flexibility, and variety. A RAFT 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 of writing (expository, narrative, descriptive, argumentative or persuasive) to create one of several products (letter, television commercial, diary entry, etc.). I define this further in the packet. In this project, students have four writing options to choose from. They may role-play as a gladiator, a concerned citizen, an emperor, or a senator. 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 book report. Students must synthesize key details and create a brand new 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. The packet includes (1) a classroom-ready printable of the RAFT for gladiators and the Colosseum; (2) a rubric that you might use to evaluate students after completion of the project; (3) suggested free websites for research should students need them; (4) and a "Ticket out the Door" summarizing strategy to gauge what students learned in the unit or project.