Some instructors give students free rein in deciding what to include in their portfolio, but most specify what the portfolio should include. Instructors usually ask students to select a certain number of essays, and they may specify that certain types of essays be included, such as one based on personal experience or observation and another based on research, along with other materials like in-
701
Instructors who require portfolios often do not assign grades to individual drafts or revisions but wait until the end of the term to grade the entire portfolio. In such cases, instructors may ask students to submit a midterm portfolio for an in-
There are many ways to assemble portfolios, and you will need to determine exactly what your instructor expects your portfolio to include. Here are some of the variables to consider:
For more about service learning, see Chapter 31.
How many essays should be included in the portfolio?
May essays be revised further for the portfolio?
What other material should be included (such as invention or research notes, exercises, notes from collaborative activities, analyses of readings, or downloaded Web pages)?
May material from other courses, workplace projects, or service-
Should the portfolio be introduced by a reflective essay or letter? If so, how long should it be? Are there any special requirements for it?
How should the portfolio be organized?
The following sections review specific resources in the Guide that can help you compose your portfolio.
Select your work.
Even if your instructor specifies what to include in your portfolio, you have some important decisions to make. Here are some suggestions to help you:
If you are asked to select only your best essays, begin by rereading them to see how well each one develops the basic features of its genre. Also review any feedback you received from your instructor, classmates, writing center tutors, or other readers.
If you are asked to make further revisions to one or more of your essays, reread the essay, using the Peer Review Guide for that genre, or get a response to it from your instructor, a classmate, or a writing center tutor. It may also help to review any responses you received on earlier drafts as well as the Troubleshooting Guide for that genre to see what else you could do to improve the essay. Be sure to edit and proofread your essays carefully.
If you are asked to select an essay based on personal experience, you might choose the remembered event essay you wrote for Chapter 2. If you are asked for essays based on firsthand observation and analysis, look at what you wrote for the profile (Chapter 3), the concept explanation (Chapter 4), the comparative analysis (Chapter 5), or the short story analysis (Chapter 10). If you are asked to include argument essays, review the writing you did for Chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9.
If you are asked to select essays incorporating research, look at the essays you wrote for Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.
If you are asked to select essays with a range of different purposes and audiences, you might begin by reviewing the Determining the Writer’s Purpose and Audience sections in Chapters 2-
If you are asked to include examples of your writing process work, look for your most thoughtful invention work; a first draft from the Drafting section in any of the Guides to Writing in Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10; one or more revisions showing significant rethinking or reorganization; your critical reading response to another student’s draft showing perceptive criticism and helpful suggestions; or a draft you edited heavily.
If you are asked to include a complete process for one essay, you should choose process materials that show the quality as well as quantity of work you have done. Look for examples of thoughtful invention and substantive revision you can point out in your reflective essay.
If you are asked to select essays that show the progress you have made in the course, you may want to choose essays that underwent radical change during the term.
Reflect on your work and what you have learned.
702
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-
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 Peer Review Guide sections in Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 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—
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, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 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.
Organize your portfolio.
703
Some instructors prescribe the portfolio’s design and organization, while others allow students to be creative. Follow your instructor’s specific guidelines. If your instructor doesn’t supply guidelines, here are some possibilities for organizing your portfolio:
Include a table of contents. Portfolios need a table of contents so that readers can see at a glance what is included and where it is located. Be sure to identify all of the parts and specify the page on which each part begins. For online portfolios, link each item in your table of contents to your work.
Label each item. If your instructor does not specify how you should label your work, you need to develop a clear system on your own. You may need to explain your system briefly in a note on the table of contents or in your introductory reflective essay, where you refer to particular items in your portfolio. For example, you could use the Guide chapter number to identify each essay assignment. To indicate process materials, consider using the chapter number and title and the relevant heading from that chapter’s Guide to Writing section (such as Chapter 2, Writing a Draft). To identify different drafts, you could write on the top left margin of every page the chapter number, essay title, and draft number. For drafts that received a critical reading, you might want to add the notation “Read by S.” You should also date all of your work.
Sequence the material. If your instructor does not indicate how you should order the work included in your portfolio, you will have to decide yourself. If your instructor asks you to present two or more examples of your best work, you may want to begin with the essay you consider your very best. If your instructor asks you to show the progress you have made in the course, you could begin with your weakest essay and either show how you improved it or present later essays that were stronger. If your instructor asks you to demonstrate growth, you might organize your work by the particular areas that improved. For example, you could show that you learned to rework your writing substantially by presenting multiple drafts. Or to show that you learned to edit effectively or to avoid certain sentence errors, you could give examples of a particular error you made one or two times early on but avoided in later drafts.