Directions for Preparing and Submitting Materials for First-Year Writing Assessment

Purposes for self-assessment
1. To write a reflection on what you’ve learned this year about writing and reading. This reflection will help you articulate your own learning and be part of your ENGL1202 final exam grade.
2. To help the English Department assess the writing program
3. To help the University assess for various proficiencies, including writing and reading

Items that go into e-portfolio
1. Your best essay from ENGL1201. Last fall, you should have put this essay into the Content System. If you did not do this last fall, please retrieve – if at all possible – an essay from 1201 and place it in the Content System. Make sure all references to your name or your instructor’s are deleted so that your work can be scored without possible bias.
2. Your best ENGL1202 essay. Put this essay in the Content System. One of the two essays you pick should demonstrate your ability to write a research paper of at least five pages, incorporating at least four sources. Make sure all references to your name or your instructor’s are deleted.
3. Self-assessment of your writing over the entire freshman year. Put this in the Content System and also submit it to your instructor in the manner s/he requires (hard copy, Blackboard, e-mail, etc.). This self-assessment may have been assigned as a take-home part of your final exam in ENGL1202. Do not refer to yourself or your instructors by name.

How to select portfolio items and write the self-assessment
To choose the essays for your portfolio, and to write a self-assessment, you will want to be aware of the primary goals of ENGL1201 and ENGL1202. The Outcomes Statements for First-Year Writing is a set of eleven statements that clarify what we expect you to have accomplished by the end of your first-year writing experience. It may also give you some language to help write your self-assessment. Finally, you might find it useful to examine a sample student self-assessment. The self-assessment should be a personal essay that focuses on a thesis about your growth as a writer over the year, documenting your claims by referring to essays and other writings. Since you will not be including previous drafts in your portfolio, it will be especially important that you cite specific instances from early and final drafts in your self-assessment to demonstrate what revision means to you. You may discuss writing besides that which you have included in your e-portfolio. It will be hard to do a thorough, thoughtful job in less than three pages. (In case you’re interested, the Primary Trait Rubric shows you questions that your instructor will use to evaluate your self-assessment and that the portfolio assessors will use to evaluate your portfolio.)

How to submit your e-portfolio
Await an announcement in Blackboard that will give you a link to a site where you will upload the essays and the self-assessment. Also, your instructor should give you instructions for submitting just the self-assessment to him or her.