Either... Or...
Main Concepts
Logic
Tables of Value
Operator
Either… Or, Exclusive Disjunction
Duration
160-240 minutes (including homework)
Summary of Activity
RAFT is an acronym for “Role, Audience, Topic, Format”. This strategy encourages students to impersonate a character and describe a situation through that character’s perspective. It is a creative assignment that requires students to research a topic and solve problems.
In this specific case, the task for students is to impersonate the connector “Either… or…” and share how they feel compared to the connectors “And” and “Or” and “Not” using the RAFT format. Many textbooks highlight the conjunction, the disjunction, the negation and the conditional operators but ignore other connectors like the exclusive disjunction (Either Or).
Notes and Insights
The suggested list of formats that I suggest includes “Personal Diary”, “Job Interview”, “Love letter”, etc. but students have often opted for more modern means of communication like Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and even Tinder.
Students can be very creative with the role, audience and format they have, but the students should present solid mathematics too, and the rubric is designed to recognize good logical thinking and presentation.
I also make sure I read all the students’ work prior to the due date to give them feedback, highlight what expected elements are missing and how to improve the impersonification.