This lesson plan aims to have high school students analyze character interactions in the novel Chanda's Secrets through a RAFT writing activity and reflective essay. Students will choose a role, audience, format, and topic, then produce a creative writing piece that combines their choices while citing examples from the text. They will also write a reflective essay justifying their creative decisions. The plan provides instructional methods including direct instruction, modeling, guided practice, and independent practice to scaffold the activity. It also includes a rubric to assess student work.

1. Title Page
Introductory Context
Your Name: Stephanie Baker
Book Title: Chanda’s Secrets by Allan Stratton
Title of Lesson: Reading Comprehension of Chanda’s Secrets through RAFT activity and
reflection
Grade Level: 9
Four-part Performance Objective:
Given a list of choices for role, audience, form, and topic, students will be able to analyze the
interactions between characters by producing a piece of writing that combines the four choices in
a way that is supported by the text and by writing a reflective essay that supports their creative
decisions with references to examples in the text. They will be able to complete the activity with
100% accuracy in creativity, textual evidence, and cohesiveness in combination of role,
audience, form, and topic.
Standards and Background Information
Ohio ELA Academic Content Standards
Reading Process: Concepts of Print, Comprehension Strategies and Self-Monitoring
Strategies
• Apply reading comprehension strategies to understand grade appropriate text.
Reading Applications: Literary Text
• Analyze interactions between characters in literary text and how the interactions affect
the plot.
• Explain and analyze how the context of setting and the author’s choice of point of view
impact a literary text.
Writing Process
• Formulate writing ideas and identify a topic appropriate to the purpose and audience
• Determine the usefulness of organizers and apply appropriate pre-writing tasks.
• Use revision strategies to improve the style, variety of sentence structure, clarity of the
controlling idea, logic, effectiveness of word choice and transitions between paragraphs,
passages or ideas.
• Edit to improve sentence fluency, grammar and usage.

2. • Apply tools to judge the quality of writing.
• Prepare writing for that is legible, follows an appropriate format and uses techniques such
as electronic resources and graphics.
Writing Applications
• Write responses to literature that extend beyond the summary and support references to
the text, other works, other authors or to personal knowledge
• Produce letters (e.g., business, letters to the editor, job applications) that follow the
conventional style appropriate to the text and that include appropriate details and exclude
extraneous details and inconsistencies.
• Use documented textual evidence to justify interpretations of literature or to support a
research topic.
Writing Conventions
• Use correct spelling conventions.
• Use correct punctuation and capitalization.
• Demonstrate understanding of the grammatical conventions of the English language.
Background Information
Language Arts Strands:
Throughout this activity students will be able to utilize the reading, writing, speaking, and
listening strands. The reading strand occurs as students return to Chanda’s Secrets for
information to support their connections in their writing. The writing strand will be addressed as
the students are drafting, revising, and copy-editing their creative pieces. Students will also
engage in prewriting activities such as brainstorming and freewriting, as well as take notes in the
writing workshop groups. The speaking strand will be applied when students get into writing
workshop groups and read aloud their writing. Likewise, the listening strand will happen when
students in the writing workshop groups are listening to their group members read their works.
Primary Domains: All three domains will be addressed in this lesson.
Cognitive
Students will acquire knowledge as they develop their points of view and appropriate material
for their role, audience, form, and topic. To do this, they will have to look up and recall
important events within the novel and apply them to their RAFT combination. This will be
demonstrated especially in the reflective papers that provide an explanation for the methods used
in the RAFT piece.
Affective
Students will develop sympathy for the characters in Chanda’s Secrets when they are asked to
write from or to one of the characters’ points of view. Connecting to the characters in this way
will help students to develop skills of compassion and “putting themselves in others’ shoes.”
Psychomotor
Students will engage in this domain as they interact with peers in the writing workshop. After
prewriting writing, students will read aloud and discuss their pieces with group members in an
active environment.

3. Skill Level
The skills of knowledge, comprehension, application, synthesis, and evaluation from Bloom’s
Taxonomy will be addressed in this essay.
The knowledge and comprehension skills overlap as students are asked to return to
examples in the novel to develop the voice and content that will be used in their writings.
Comprehension is probably the stronger of these skills, since mere recollection isn’t sufficient to
develop these points of view. Students will further use comprehension as they consider
important events of the text for use in their writing. The application level is apparent when
students support the choices they made in their creative writing in their reflective essay. The
process of separating and selecting important evens culminates in the application of these events
to the writing assignment. Synthesis is addressed when students formulate their creative writing
and reflective writing pieces. They must take all of the information in the novel and select and
present certain elements in a comprehendible way within their RAFT writing. Finally, students
will use evaluation as they work in their writing workshop groups to judge their own and their
group members’ work. This evaluation can in turn be synthesized to edit and polish their works.
Multiple intelligences
This lesson uses linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal multiple intelligences.
Linguistic
This MI is inherent in the writing activity students are asked to complete. They will use
prewriting and editing activities to develop appropriate writing. They will also be able to use the
reflective essay to explain their methods. The writing workshop addresses the spoken part of the
linguistic MI as students read their works aloud.
Spatial
This MI will be addressed through prewriting activities. Students can develop their ideas in any
number of ways, including brainstorming in webs that provide a visual resource for organization.
This web can also be used to formulate the reflective essay.
Interpersonal
This MI is essential to writing from the different roles in RAFT. Students will be able to use
their social abilities to develop a work from a character’s point of view. The writing workshop
also utilizes this strength as students work with each other to fine-tune their pieces of work.
Intrapersonal
This MI is most notably addressed in the reflective essay component. Here, students can explain
why they did what they did in their RAFT piece. Their ability to look within themselves will
help explain their train of thought and meaning in crafting their RAFT work.
Developmental Context
Before this lesson plan can be effective, students must already be familiar with constructing the
various forms under the RAFT choices. Teachers can modify this by limiting the forms allowed.
However, form is an important freedom for students to gain confidence in their writing. Students
should also be familiar with the topics listed in the RAFT choices. Teachers can modify these as
needed, but it would be hard to conduct this activity without a discussion on AIDS and the
impact on each of the characters. This activity is more of an opportunity for students to
demonstrate what they have learned than to teach these ideas. As a result, previous lessons on
form and discussions on themes (topics) and characters are important.

4. Timing
This activity should be given after the novel has been read to give the largest amount of freedom;
however it can also be adapted to take place in the middle of the novel and serve as an
anticipatory activity for the end of the novel. Overall the activity would take about four days.
The first day should be spent selecting a RAFT profile and formulating ideas through
brainstorming. The second day should involve research into the novel to support the connections
and methods used in the writing as well as the completion of a rough draft. The third day should
be spent in writing workshops and editing. The fourth day should be spent finalizing the RAFT
piece as well as constructing the reflective essay.
Resources and Materials
Chanda’s Secrets
Pencils, pens
Notebook paper
RAFT selection guide
Rubric
Guide for Writing Workshop
Procedure
Anticipatory Set
How did you feel about the characters in the book? Was there any point where you
wanted to intervene and have someone come out and say something to another person? Do you
have any ideas for what you would like to see happen next?
Key Concept
After teaching this lesson, I would like students to have a better understanding of
connections between characters in the novel and its importance (noted under Reading
Applications: Literary Text in ACS). I would also like students to connect with the novel
through these characters and the topics. Finally, after this lesson I would like to see students
produce a piece of creative work that still finds justification with evidence from the text.
Instructional Methods
1. Direct Instruction/Whole Class Discussion: To begin the lesson, the teacher will
begin by having students summarize the novel. Then he or she will ask students
about frustrations they might have had with the characters and what they were or
weren’t saying (see Anticipatory Set above). The students will respond to the
questions and generate a short class discussion lasting about 5 to 7 minutes.
2. Direct Instruction: Next, the teacher should introduce the RAFT activity. RAFT is
a way of forming a piece of writing that supports student self-direction and creativity.
Students are required to create a piece of writing by choosing one element from each
of four categories: role, audience, format, topic. The teacher should explain what
each of these means to the activity. The role is what position or voice the student will

5. take in the writing assignment. The audience is who they will be writing to in their
role. The format is what genre they will be writing in, sometimes this can get as
creative as making a poster or acting out a skit. Finally, the topic is what the writing
piece must be about. This should take about 3 to 5 minutes
3. Direct Instruction/Class Discussion: The RAFT guide can be predetermined by the
teacher or developed collaboratively with the students. I would suggest developing it
collaboratively with students, as this can also serve as an assessment to see who they
remember from the novel, important topics/themes, and what formats they find
interesting. A compromise can also be made with the teacher starting the guide
beforehand and only leaving a few spots for student contribution. Generation should
take about 3 to 5 minutes
• RAFT Sample Selection Guide
Role Audience Format Topic
Esther Iris Letter AIDS
Chanda Esther Dialogue Friendsh
ip
Mrs. Tafa Dr. Chilume Essay Family
Emmanuel Mrs. Tafa Classified Superstit
Ad Series ion
AIDS Chanda’s Monologue/ Lilian
Welcome neighbors Speech Kabelo
Center Friendship
Project
Jonah Chanda Rant Morality
4. Individual Work/Guided Practice: When students have chosen their components
of RAFT, they will work independently to freewrite their ideas that connect their
choices. These freewrites can be collected by the teacher to determine whether the
class understands the assignment. The teacher can also use this time to walk around
and observe students and their writing to see if they understand. This should take
about 5 minutes.
After the students have completed freewrites, they should consult the novel for more
ideas to add to their brainstorming, as well as to look for support for what they have
already written. Then, the students should start working on their rough drafts. This
should take about 25 minutes.
5. Small Group Instruction: After students have completed their rough drafts, they
should get into small groups of about 3 or 4 students for a writing workshop. The
teacher should set up expectations for while they are in the workshop such as the ones
below. This should take about 20 minutes
• Sharers read their RAFT stories aloud
• Listeners write their comments down while listening
Comments should include
• What did you like about the work?
• What four RAFT choices did the person pick?
• Suggestions to make the RAFT choices clearer
• Lingering questions about the work
6. Individual Work: Finally, students should bring together the advice they received in

6. their writing workshop to create another draft of their RAFT piece. This can be done
at home. The reflective essay can also be done at home or in class lasting about 15
minutes.
• The reflective essay should include the student’s rationale for how he or she
connected the four components of RAFT with evidence from the novel
Modeling
Modeling can take place several places in this lesson. The first will take place as the
teacher is explaining how to do a RAFT activity as a verbal example connecting Chanda, Esther,
Letter and AIDS: “Chanda writes a letter to Esther to warn her about her activities with tourists
and the possibility of getting AIDS.” The second will take place before freewriting, when the
teacher can share the freewriting he or she did when generating ideas for the model. The third
will take place when the model RAFT essay is read to the class before the writing workshop.
The modeling in this instance goes into asking the students to act as the writing workshop for the
teacher’s piece of writing. The teacher asks the students the same questions that he or she
expects to be asked and answered in the student writing workshops. Finally, the teacher will
share the reflective essay before the students sit down to write their own.
Monitoring to Check for Understanding
Monitoring for understanding is constant throughout the lesson. First, when reviewing
the book, teachers will ask students for the summary. This will enable the teacher to hear how
the students would summarize the novel and what events seem the most important to them.
Second, monitoring will take place when the students are freewriting and looking up information
in the novel. The teacher will walk around and read the freewritings and have individual
conferences with students. The teacher will ask students questions inspired by the rubric, such as
“What evidence in the novel made you think of this interaction?” and “How do you plan on
organizing this information?” It would also be beneficial to ask the students what evidence in
the text inspired them to write in the tone they chose. Third, the teacher will walk around and
listen-in on the writing workshops. This way the teacher will not only hear the types of
questions and suggestions students have, but will also an understanding of where the students are
in their own understanding based on the types of questions they are asking.
Guided Practice
• Ask students to get in writing workshop groups based on what role they chose in their
RAFT piece.
• Ask students to discuss with one another where they got their evidence for the
interactions they chose.
• Ask students to pay specific attention to certain questions (listed in Procedures) in their
writing workshop groups.
Independent Practice
• Have students complete the freewriting activity on their own when assigned the activity.
• Have students complete a rough draft of their RAFT writing to discuss in their writing
workshops.
• Have students work to fix grammatical mistakes on their own by reading their work aloud
in the writing workshop.

7. Closure
Have students share their work via a gallery walk. Hang student RAFT papers around the room
and have students silently walk around and read the papers. To make students read more than
one or two, extra credit points can be assigned for reading six or more papers. When the class is
done, have a discussion about how writing from the character’s point of view helped to
understand their role in the novel and important events associated with that character. Specific
questions include, “How did this writing assignment better help you understand the characters?
The events? And the themes?” and “How did you feel about writing on behalf of a character?
Did this help you to understand or come to terms with issues in the novel that previously
bothered you?”
Handout, Teacher Model, and Rubric
Handout including RAFT generated by teacher (or by class if given as an empty grid)
Teacher model of a RAFT activity connecting Chanda, Esther, Letter and AIDS
Chanda writes a letter to Esther to warn her about her activities with tourists and the
possibility of getting AIDS.
Rubric for RAFT activity and for reflection essay

8. What am I turning in?
Freewrite brainstorming connections (2 pts)
Rough Draft in the format chosen (3 pts)
Revision after writing workshop (15 points)
Reflection Essay that explains your choices and your rationale
(5 pts)
Role Audience Format Topic
Total 20 pts
Esther Iris Letter AIDS
Chanda Esther Dialogue Friendship
Mrs. Tafa Dr. Chilume Essay Family
Classified Ad
Emmanuel Mrs. Tafa Superstition
Series
AIDS Lilian Kabelo
Chanda’s Monologue/
Welcome Friendship
neighbors Speech
Center Project
Jonah Chanda Rant Morality
1. For this activity you will need to select one item from each of the categories

9. Chanda’s Secrets Book Cover:
Red Ribbon:
Clasped Hands:
Map of Africa:
(please circle)to Blue Arrow: Microsoft Officewriting
construct a piece of Clip Art
based on the format you chose.
2. Freewrite some ideas regarding what you would write as your connection.
3. Look up specific examples in the novel that you can use to justify your writing.
• Tone
• Audience
• Format
• Topic
4. Write a Rough draft. It should be at least one page in length.
5. Writing workshop to work on content, organization, grammar, and justification.
6. Use suggestions and considerations from workshop to revise your draft.
7. Write a half-page reflection that puts your justifications and reasoning into
text.
Teacher Model
RAFT choices: Role-Chanda, Audience-Esther, Format-Letter, Topic-AIDS
I chose to think of a way to include my letter as an occurrence that could have
happened in the middle of the novel, but you do not have to do the same. So long as you
use all four elements of RAFT and can support your creative decisions with the text in
your reflective essay you (e.g. You don’t make Chanda an African princess offering to
pay for Esther’s AIDS treatment) you are free use creative license.
Dear Esther,
Instead of dancing around the hard subjects, I’m just going to say it: I’m terrified
you’ll get AIDS. Today we finally talked about what you do when you hang around
Liberty Bell. I know that you said you just started hooking and that you always bring
condoms, but that’s what worries me.
We both know how AIDS is transmitted, and it isn’t enough to just bring them. I
don’t think it matters if the men don’t like them. It probably means that they have been
with other women in the park, too. I know that you aren’t a whore, but what if the other
women are?
People all around us are dying from AIDS and we just choose to ignore it, but I
can’t watch it happen to my best friend without trying to stop it in some way. Even if you
lose some business, you’ll still have your life. Hooking to save money to bring your
family together won’t do any good if you get AIDS along the way.
I don’t think you’re a whore, and I know you’re probably getting upset at me as
you read this. I’m not trying to call you either one of these, though, I promise! You’re
still my best friend Esther that wants her family back. But that’s just it, you’re my best

10. friend and I don’t want to lose you. People die from AIDS, and I don’t want you to be
one of them. I don’t think I could lose my best friend. Please, Esther.
Your friend,
Chanda

11. e, describe the connection you made between the four components:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Chanda’s Secrets RAFT Rubric
Please write down your choices:
Role _____________________
Audience _________________
Format ___________________
Topic ____________________
2
5 4 3
Needs Total
Great Good Acceptable
Improvement
Adequately
addresses by
supporting from
Adequately
the text with Adequately Adequately
Reflection Essay: addresses
examples the addresses two of addresses one ___ x 1
Content three of the
use of Tone, the four of four
four
Audience,
Format, Topic
Applies each of
Applies 3 of Applies 2 of the Only applies
RAFT: Content the 4 RAFT ___ x 2
the 4 four one of the four
components
Rare Considerable
Consistently mistakes in A few mistakes mistakes in use
uses correct use of correct in use of correct of correct
spelling, spelling, spelling, spelling,
RAFT: Conventions ___ x 1
punctuation and punctuation punctuation and punctuation
capitalization, and capitalization, and
and grammar capitalization, and grammar capitalization,
and grammar and grammar
Exists with
Exists but
thoughtful
Rough Draft ----- ----- inconsistent ___ x 1
revisions marked
with Revision
and applied
Freewriting
----- ----- ---- Exists ____ x 1
(All or nothing)
____ /
Total
25