Portfolio Assignment

ENC-101: ENGLISH COMPOSITION I

Final Project

Portfolio Assignment

At the end of the semester you are required to submit a portfolio of your written work. This portfolio will contain four items. Three of these items will be essays from assignments that you submitted before the midterm examination and revised during the second half of the course, based on feedback you received from your mentor. The fourth item is an essay that will document your awareness of the decisions you made and processes you employed as you revised the other three items in your portfolio. This assignment will account for 20 percent of your final grade.

The object of this exercise is for you to improve your writing skills by being consciously aware of the decisions you make and the processes you use when developing written work. That is why you are asked to take notes as you revise your assignments (see #2 and #3 below).

In technical terms you will be recording your metacognitive process. Metacognition  is usually defined as “knowing about knowing”: analyzing your own learning or thinking process. The metacognitive process is actually two separate processes that take place at the same time. First, you will be checking your progress as you learn; second, you will be making any adjustments necessary to improve your performance if you think you need to do better. The essay you are to produce as part of this assignment should be based on your notes and should be a polished explanation of the process, describing what you did to improve your earlier assignments and why.

Guidelines: Portfolio Assignment

Completing the final project involves four steps:

1. The first step is to choose three of the six essays you handed in before the midterm examination; these three should be ones that you want to revise and resubmit as part of this portfolio.

2. The second step to analyze your three essays to see where you could improve them while keeping notes on the process. You will use these notes to produce a final essay of approximately 750 words discussing the decisions and choices involved in your revisions.

3. The third step is to revise the three essays you chose while continuing to keep notes detailing your writing and revision processes.

4. The fourth step is to write your final essay and combine it with your revised essays into a single submission that explains the processes you used when writing and the best examples of your work.

Step 1: Select Which Previous Assignments to Revise

When you are selecting which previous essays to revise, try to find a way to link them together. Ask yourself questions such as:

What do these essays have in common?

Answers may include:

· They are all addressed to the same kind of audience (pp. 89-93).

· They all have similar errors that need to be addressed (see the Table of Contents or Index in the text for help with the errors).

· They all have the same aim: expressive, referential, or persuasive (pp. 241 and following, p. 391 and following, and p. 327 and following).

Step 2: Analyze Your Assignments and Make Notes

After you have selected the three essays to revise, the main question to ask yourself is:

How can I improve these essays?

Review the readings from the Gong and Dragga text to find answers to this question. Answers may include:

· The sentence structure needs work or the paragraphs don't flow well (pp. 155-158).

· I communicated my purpose well in one but not in the other two (pp. 144-146).

· The thesis is weak (p. 152).

· I need to develop a better style (pp. 173-190).

Additional questions that you should ask yourself when considering how to improve your essays are:

· Which of the common concerns for writers apply to these assignments?

· Are there areas that I can see where my writing breaks down?

· What are the external and internal forces that interfere with my writing process? What can I do to counter these breakdowns?

· What other ways can I tie these essays together with a common theme from the text?

Step 3: Revise Your Assignments and Make Notes

After you have analyzed your three essays to see where you can improve them, start the revision process. You should edit the essays according to the notes written by your mentor, the answers to the questions like those listed above in Step 2 above, and the readings from Gong and Dragga.

As you edit, continue to record the process you use. Keep making notes on your decisions. These notes will be essential when it comes to writing the final essay that you must include in your portfolio.

The purpose of this process is to raise your awareness of the multiple decisions that comprise the writing process.

Step 4: Write Your Final Essay and Combine it with Revised Assignments to Create a Portfolio of Your Writing

When you have completed editing the three essays, you will need to write a final essay and combine the four as one document to submit to your mentor in the last week of the semester.

In your final essay you will explain the reasons why you chose the three essays you did and the changes that you focused on.

Your final essay should be approximately 750 words. (This does not include the length of the three chosen essays.)

Remember: The final essay should be written in the standard essay form that you have used all term! Be sure to number your pages and follow other guidelines required of all of your assignments.

When combining your work for the final project, the final essay should be first, followed by the three revised essays. In that way, your mentor can find out about the process you followed and the decisions you made while preparing this project and review your essays with this information in mind.

Remember: This project is a collection of your work and an explanation of your thought process (metacognitive process). It is a chance for you to show your best work.