Preparing a portfolio and reflecting on your writing

At the end of the semester, your instructor may ask you to submit a portfolio, or collection, of your writing. A writing portfolio often consists of drafts, revisions, and reflections that demonstrate a writer’s thinking and learning processes or showcase the writer’s best work. Your instructor may give you the choice of submitting a paper portfolio or an e-portfolio.

Reflection—the process of stepping back periodically to examine your decisions, preferences, strengths, and challenges as a writer—is the backbone of portfolio keeping. Your instructor may ask you to submit a reflective document in which you introduce or comment on the pieces in your portfolio and discuss your development as a writer throughout the course.

This reflection may take the form of an essay, a cover letter, or some other kind of statement—often, but not always, placed as an introductory piece in the portfolio. In writing the reflective document, you might try one or more of the following strategies:

• Discuss, in depth, your best entry. Explain why it is your best and how it represents what you learned in the course.
• Describe in detail the revisions you’ve made to one key piece and the improvements and changes you want readers to notice. Include specific passages from the piece.
• Demonstrate what this portfolio illustrates about you as a writer, student, researcher, or critical thinker.
• Reflect on what you’ve learned about writing and reading throughout the course.
• Reflect on how you plan to use the skills and experiences from your writing course in other courses where writing will be assigned.

Reflective cover letter

reflective writing A genre that examines the writer's thinking, feelings, values, or beliefs as a result of some experience.