Portfolios

I have used portfolios in composition classes in the past, but never in the digital realm--until this semester. Typically when creating a portfolio, I ask my students to include a certain number of essays they've previously written (in a final, revised version), along with a "Dear Reader" letter which details the struggles, challenges, and triumphs involved in all of these pieces of writing.

This semester, I considered the portfolio project I generally use in my CIS Composition class and allowed students to create a digital portfolio via wiki if they wished. More than half the class took me up on it (which surprised me as it was a trial project).

The project:

Create a portfolio about yourself as a literary person—an intellectual or artistic bon vivant. Imagine your portfolio will be appreciated by those attending a graduation open house or as an artifact of your life in 2009. Directions:

1. Title your portfolio on the front page of the wiki.

2. Include the following links:

a. a fully revised and edited personal narrative

b. a fully revised and edited personal essay

c. a fully revised and edited literary analysis

d. a fully revised and edited review

3. Additionally, include any of the following:

a. A tribute to your favorite childhood author/book/movie.

b. A tribute to your current favorite author/book/movie.

c. A tribute to those who have helped you become a literate person, or a description of

obstacles you have overcome on your path to literary enlightenment.

d. An explanation of the criteria you use to evaluate the worth of a literary text.

e. Photos, illustrations, passages from literary works, famous quotes, jokes, song lyrics, poems,

etc. that further illustrate your path to literary enlightenment.

Additionally (after creating all of these entries), I have students create a page where they reflect on their writing development within the course. I have found that students enjoy this project because of the items in #3 above; they love talking about childhood books or movies or other influences. Once they've looked back at their writing from the beginning of the course (as well as some from years previous), they can really articulate areas of improvement and struggle that they have found. Even though they haven't necessarily thought about this consciously before, they are generally reflective and notice these trends as the course progresses.

See these samples from my class this semester.

For my own learning, I appreciate blog entries as a concrete place to look back. I'm not necessarily always organized enough to keep track of actual paper products, so a digital record of thoughts is important. For this class, it's been important for me to look back at the various technologies we've learned as my own teaching moves along. Applications that didn't previously occur to me suddenly do based on what we're doing in class. Something else I've started this semester is a blog for my daily lesson plans. I give the address to my students (for when they miss class) and their parents (to find out what their children should be doing), but it also will be super useful for me to look back on in future semesters. I've always kept a general paper calendar of the structure for the semester, but the more specific daily blogs will help me to remember more specific activities that worked well. Sometimes if there are new projects, I'm guilty of forgetting what they were.