Grading Portfolios – A Summary

When grading a portfolio, the instructor does not give individual grades to each included component but assesses it as a whole. The cover letter or writer’s memo plays an especially important role in helping the instructor read the portfolio.

The development and use of either a rubric or shared list of goals and values can help in the grading process. These goals and values can be developed with students during class discussions. When instructors allow time in class for such discussions and build rubrics around agreed-upon values, the grading process becomes more transparent. Students get a clearer sense of what they are working for and what they are working on.

Although students do not receive grades on drafts or individual assignments, they receive other kinds of useful feedback from the instructor and their peers in a range of forms. Conferences and written comments, along with classroom conversations during small group (peer review) and whole-class workshops can all help students revise their thinking and their writing. Thus, when portfolios are used to present work for evaluation, grades are not disregarded. They are simply deferred. What graded papers don’t often allow for is change over time. In the case of English 100, this can be a period of weeks during which meanings can continue to be negotiated, ideas honed and tried out, revisions made—and revised again—until the time when the portfolio is due.