smg10e_ch30

Reflect on your work and what you have learned.

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Many instructors require a written statement in the form of an essay or letter introducing the portfolio. Some ask for a simple description of the work presented in your portfolio; others prefer an evaluation of your work; still others may want you to connect your learning in this course to other courses and to work you hope to do in the future. Keeping the following considerations in mind will help you write a thoughtful, well-organized statement to your instructor about what you have learned:

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Introduce and describe your work. Because you will need to refer to several works or parts of a work, name each item in your portfolio in a consistent way. In describing an essay, give its title, genre (using the title of the chapter in The St. Martin’s Guide), purpose, audience, and topic.
If you need help writing an evaluation, review Chapter 8.

Justify your choices. When you justify what you see as your “best” work, you think critically about the standards you are using to evaluate good writing in each genre. The Guide sets forth clear criteria for each kind of writing in the Use the Basic Features and Critical Reading Guide sections in Chapters 2–10. Review these sections as you judge the success of your essay, and refer to them as you explain your analysis.
Illustrate your growth as a writer with specific examples. You may have selected work to show how you have grown as a writer, but you should not assume your readers will read the portfolio as you do without some guidance. You need to show them where they can find evidence that supports your analysis by citing relevant examples from the work included in your portfolio. Summarize or quote your examples, and be sure to tell readers what you think the examples illustrate. Also refer to them in a way that will help readers locate them with ease—perhaps by page and paragraph number (see the next section for some suggestions for organizing your portfolio).
Use the Guide to help you reflect on your learning. Your instructor may ask you to consider what you learned in writing and revising a particular essay as well as what you learned about the process of writing that essay. In either case, it will help you to anchor your reflections in the specific work you have done using this book. Consider what you have learned analyzing and discussing the readings, drafting and researching, participating in groups, getting and giving critical comments, and revising and editing. Look again at the Thinking Critically sections in Chapters 2–10. There you will find questions that will help you reflect on how you solved problems when revising an essay and how your writing can be situated and understood in a larger social context. You may well be able to use your responses to these questions in your portfolio’s reflective essay.