The Portfolio and Writing Reflection

Due December 18th^th

Note: December 20^th is the final day of the semester. No work may be submitted beyond this date.

The Portfolio and Writing Reflection are in many ways the most important documents that you’ll create for this class. Assembling the Portfolio will help you to see your progress as a writer over the course of the semester, and the Writing Reflection will give you the chance to evaluate that progress and articulate your theory of writing.

 

The Portfolio

Your Portfolio will be a presentation of all of your major work from his semester, housed on your own personal website within the CUNY Academic Commons (the same site you have used as the home for your journal).

Your portfolio should include, at a minimum, your Personal Narrative, Character Profile Assignment, Composition in 2 Genres Project , and your Inquiry-Based Essay, as well as a separate page containing all of your journal entries the semester (at a minimum of 12).

You might want to include a draft from an early and a late assignment that illustrate changes in your drafting process, though this is not required. In order to better orient readers of your Portfolio, you may also wish to compose introductions to (or abstracts for) each of the documents you showcase, including your major essays. A few sentences will do.

While the arrangement/design of the portfolio is up to you, it should be easy to navigate. As with any Web site, you want to be able to find what you’re looking for without any interference. (A separate document will be provided with helpful tips, resources, and sample portfolios). Be aware of the privacy settings, and make sure that all Commons users can view your site.

 

Writing Reflection (2-3 pages double spaced)

This Writing Reflection is part journal entry, part short research paper…only in this case your development as a writer is the subject and the writing itself is your evidence. As you write this reflection, you’ll be referring to the works you’ve included in your Portfolio. This piece should answer two questions: To what extent have I achieved the course learning objectives (below)? And in what ways have my perceptions on what writing is and does evolved this semester?

The learning objectives you should address are:

• Enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and reflecting.
• Acquire skills to analyze texts for rhetorical and literary elements (Tone, Theme, Voice, Stance, Setting, POV…etc.)
• Take into account audience expectations and genre conventions
• Develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes
• Practice using various library resources, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects
• Strengthen your source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources)

Your portfolio and reflection will not be evaluated on whether or not you have achieved the goals, but on how well you demonstrate your progress and express yourself through writing and presentation. Most of all, you should articulate how your personal perceptions have evolved regarding the question, “What is writing?”

This will be included in your Portfolio, and does not need to be submitted separately.

 

Grading

Below are the criteria I will use to assess your final work. You may want to use this as checklist before you submit.

Portfolio

• Is your portfolio design simple and easy to navigate?
• Does your portfolio contain all required assignments + journal entries?
• Have you maintained consistency from one page to the next?
• Have you used color and contrast to make things simple for your reader?
• Have you considered font and page layout to create a neat, easy to read text?

 

Writing Reflection

• Have you addressed all of the course learning objectives, even those that you feel you did not spend enough time working on?
• Have you articulated explicitly the ways in which your perceptions of writing have evolved? (Addressed the “what is writing” question).
• Have you provided evidence, in the form of your own writing and specific learning moments, that you have developed as a writer? Are you able to identify areas in which you have not progressed, and articulated why?
• Have you effectively revised and edited your writing? (Free of errors, typos, etc.)