In English 100, instructors do not give letter grades on individual writing assignments.

Instead, our portfolio system broadens the focus of assessment to include both finished products (revised papers) and the development of writers (people involved in writing activities). Perhaps most important, using portfolios encourages students and instructors alike to be reflective about the writing process, the progress of the course, and the ways in which writing can be valued.

Why Portfolios?

Research in composition and rhetoric suggests portfolios can bring the following benefits to your class.  They can:

• Provide fairer grades that take growth and multiple texts into account
• Model writing as a process
• Encourage students to take more initiative in their learning
• Help students make connections between each lesson, assignment, and sequence
• Develop students’ ability to analyze their own process and writing
• Give students real-world skills in presenting their own abilities, strengths, weaknesses, contributions, thinking process, role in a team, and plans
• Take the focus off of finishing a paper to receive a grade, and put the focus on developing skills and ideas over time, thus delaying the “high-risk” writing until students have received lots of feedback and carefully reflected on their own work

English 100 and Portfolios

Instructors use portfolios in English 100 as a way to help students develop a body of writing over time. When we encourage students to develop their work over time, we are also encouraging them to develop as writers, giving them opportunities to build on their experiences in the new context of a college writing class and to try out strategies different from the ones they used in high school. Through portfolios and other practices—like writing workshops and peer review—we try to shift the focus off “writing for a grade” toward writing with other purposes in mind, such as communicating with readers, creating new understandings, exploring possibilities, or making a persuasive argument.

In addition to polished work, each portfolio a student presents usually includes drafts and other preparatory work for a major assignment. This is one way to include process as an element in evaluation and to get a better sense of the writer’s development over time. Students can be asked to submit drafts, prewriting, notes, and outlines. Ask your students to include drafts that have your written comments as well as any written feedback received from peers. As an additional benefit, the inclusion of drafts in a portfolio can discourage plagiarism or other forms of academic dishonesty.

Portfolios also require a piece of reflective writing as a cover letter or memo. Cover letters can be drafted and receive feedback, just as with other assignments. In their cover letters, students reflect on their work and assess their own development. They can place the work of English 100 within the broader context of their writing lives and social worlds. They can also demonstrate how well they understand their own writing processes, discuss peer review in relation to their work, and show how they see the expectations of a university community with regard to effective writing.

All of these elements will build off of the work teacher and students undertake throughout the course—the conversations had, the writing students produce, the readings assigned, the responses students receive to their writing.

Teaching Approaches that Make Portfolios Strong Learning Tools

Portfolios work best when considered as part of a semester-long plan that takes advantage of their strengths.  Here are three key principles to follow when working with portfolios.

1. Focus on writing as a process, with lots of support for students at different points in their thinking, research, and writing.

Model a strong approach to writing as a creative process by (a) helping students break a project into smaller parts, and (b) helping them learn how to include others in their writing process.

2. Delay judgment and make room for risk-taking.

For example, offer formative, open-ended feedback early in the writing process. The idea is to help students find and refine their ideas, or try out new approaches, before they worry too much about polishing the final project.

3. Provide repeated chances for meaningful reflection, with feedback

The cover letter or writer’s memo that accompanies a final version of a portfolio should be the culmination of a reflective process, not the beginning of it.  Model for your students how to talk about their own writing. Give them tools for talking about different aspects of their writing, at different stages in their process, and give them many chances for practice. See the next chapter for more on building reflection into your course.