Reading and Writing Workshop e-Portfolio (no longer used}

E-Portfolio Directions for ENGL0110

Creating a portfolio of your work, and a self-assessment that examines that portfolio, is a way to take charge of your educational experience. Not only will the instructor assess your work; you will also assess your work and your experience with writing and reading.

This portfolio will be scored by your instructor and by another Seton Hall writing instructor in order to give you a more consensual assessment of your performance in ENGL0110 and evaluate your readiness for College English I. The possible scores are 1, 2, 3, and 4, with 1 lowest and 4 highest. The portfolio due date will be no later than Saturday, Dec.11, at 5:00 p.m., though your instructor may request that you turn it in earlier.

The final term e-portfolio is comprised of four items:

  1. Two final draft essays.  Each essay must provide an argument for a thesis and one essay must draw upon at least two sources in a substantive way.  The final draft should be without instructor comments, so as to eliminate the bias that would come from the outside scorers seeing your instructor’s comments and/or grade. You may further revise this essay for the portfolio.
  2. Include a previous draft for one of the essays from #1.
  3. A self-assessment (3-5 pages). The ability to write about your writing and reading skills is one factor in promoting your future growth and will affect your overall portfolio score. See student example.

To share the materials in #1 and #2 with your professor and another professor, just e-mail both of them, attaching with the drafts and self-assessment.  In the subject line, put “portfolio–your name.”  This is important so that your portfolio doesn’t get lost in our inboxes.

Directions for Self-Assessment

Write a self-assessment of your development as a writer and reader over the term.  The self-assessment should be a personal essay that focuses on your growth as a writer in ENGL0110.  However, it should also be an essay every bit as much as Essays 2, 3, and 4 in your ENGL0110 class. That is, it should have a thesis, an introduction that engages the reader, an argument that leads to a conclusion, and documentation from the writing you’ve done this term.  You may discuss writing besides that which you have included in your e-portfolio.  Good self-assessments are honest self-assessments.  We’re not looking for you to prove that you’re a perfect writer, just that you understand what you’re good and not-so-good at and what processes you use to produce your best writing.  It will
be hard to write a substantive self-assessment in less than three pages. Along with issues you wish to deal with, you will want to respond to the following aspects of your writing and reading (see list below).  However, your essay should not just be a list of answers to these questions; rather, it should integrate those answers (and other observations you make) into an essay that argues for a particular perspective on you as a writer.  You may wish to refer to the First-Year Writing Outcomes Statements to provide some language useful to writing your self-assessment.  Your portfolio will be assessed using the first-year writing rubric on a scale of 1 to 4, though you will not document the places you cite your own drafts.

  1. What specific writing skills have you learned in this class? Briefly explain how these skills have helped you as a writer by citing parts of the revised essays, especially the last one.
  2. Assess the writing difficulties you faced and discuss what you have done to remedy those problems. You could discuss one or two problems you have dealt with successfully and one or two problems (that you identify, perhaps after an honest analysis of the problems you still see in the revised paper in the portfolio) you’re still struggling with.
  3. Evaluate your experience with the revision process. You could write about how you’ve learned to use feedback from your instructor, your classmates in peer review, and your tutor; what you’ve learned about writing through the process of revising; and how your idea of revision has changed (if at all), especially since the mid-term.
  4. Reflect upon how your reading experience has changed in this class. What new reading strategies have you learned? How have your experiences and
    strategies affected the way you read now–both in your English class and outside this class?
  5. Make an evaluation of yourself as a writer outside of this writing class. How have the skills that you have learned in this class been useful in other courses.