Final blog for Sp 09: the portfolio as reflection

In a little more than a week, May 4, my ENG 102 students will submit their final portfolios for this semester: the ones that account for 60 percent of their final course grade. In preparation, this week has been a marathon of individual conferences and workshopping in order to help students make choices about which projects to include in the portfolio and what revisions to make to those projects. Essentially, they are making a final argument that they have met the course goals and can produce work that is evaluated highly according to the Writing Program rubric.

One of the differences in preparing a portfolio is that there is no attempt at thinking about "readers" in general or even in terms of classmates as peer reviewers. The audience for the portfolio is me. So it's appropriate that my last blog for this semester be a review of what I look for in the portfolios.

• How does the portfolio as a whole demonstrate the student writer has achieved the goals outlined in the course syllabus? This includes understanding how to: adapt your work to an audience; achieve a purpose with your writing; develop effective writing strategies that include invention, drafting and revising; be creative but use the appeals (logos, pathos, ethos); incorporate secondary research; work in groups; be able to critically read your own work and that of other writers.
• How does each piece of the portfolio demonstrate the skills listed above AND address the guidelines for the project?
• How does each item in the portfolio rank on the Writing Program rubric? In other words, I read each paper with the idea of assigning it a grade, but I don't just "average" the grades together. I consider the portfolio as a whole when assigning a grade.

For my student bloggers, one idea for your last blog this semester is to discuss how you think your work demonstrates your achievement of the syllabus goals?

Another option is to answer the question: How am I ready for ENG 104? Not that you can accomplish the goals for 104 yet, but are you ready to work toward these goals? Here is an overview of the goals of that course:

• Create and complete research projects using both primary and secondary research, and document the sources appropriately.
• Generate a research question that you are interested in investigating. Pick appropriate research methods to investigate.
• Employ critical thinking in evaluation, analysis and synthesis of research.
• Use a variety of strategies to gather and organize information to persuade your audience.
• Use the university library for research.
• Complete individual and joint research projects.

I'll close this semester's blog by thanking my ENG 102 students for an excellent semester. I really enjoy working with writers, especially when I get to learn so much from them and about them in the process. See you on Facebook!