Assignment: Portfolio Prompt
Your portfolio should contain your best writing and should showcase the skills you've learned this entire semester.
You will include the following information uploaded to the D2L Dropbox titled "Portfolio":
• Two of your major writing assignments, substantially revised, each with a template cover sheet that identifies the intended audience and purpose. Also, please highlight substantial revisions and additions and use the comment function to explain how these revisions and additions improve the essays.
• One of these major writing assignments should include citable research.
• A reflective essay of 1,000-1,500 words.
Part I. Artifacts: The Revision of Two Major Assignments
The revision requirement highlights the importance of writing as a process. Whether we're writing a resume or completing a class assignment, the due date does not mean it is the best it ever will be. Revising at the end of the semester shows you how you've grown as a writer and demonstrates your proficiency in all the things you practiced during the semester.
Revising Major Writing Assignments:
Revision options include the following:
• Further developing content
• Reorganizing content
• Improving coherence (such as adding transitions, avoiding repetition, and making connections)
• Enhancing key features of the applicable genre and format
• Correcting surface features
• Properly framing quotations and/or supporting details (introduced and explained)
• An altering of tone to fit audience/purpose
• Addressing any feedback
• Other improvements are also welcome
Notes on Revision Process
• Revisions should adhere to the initial assignment expectations.
• Just changing surface features (grammar, spelling, page format, etc.) is not substantial revision.
• An excellent revision will go beyond responding to feedback. As you consider what else would benefit from revision, consider how the revision will illustrate what you learned this semester.
• Highlight substantial revisions and additions and use the comment function to explain how these revisions and additions improve the essays.
Part II. Writing the Reflection
This part of the portfolio requires you to reflect on how you met the Course Outcomes (see below) in the revisions. This is not about proving your complete success in all areas of the course. Instead, this is an exercise in which you describe and analyze your process and progress in the course-even when you struggled, were frustrated, or didn't understand. The best reflection will include specific examples from the revisions in the portfolio.
Introduction: Write an introduction that honestly and thoughtfully reflects on what you learned about writing, reading, communication, etc., and/or how you've grown this semester.
Body paragraph one: Explain how you met or struggled with these outcomes from the Rhetorical Knowledge category. Use specific examples from your portfolio artifacts to show how you met or struggled with these outcomes.
Rhetorical Knowledge category
• Analyze and respond to the needs of different audiences and rhetorical contexts.
• Make rhetorical choices consistent with a controlling purpose.
• Recognize basic elements of persuasive and argumentative writing (appeals, claims, reasons, evidence, etc.).
Body paragraph two: Explain how you met or struggled with an outcome from the Critical Thinking/Reading category. Use specific examples from your portfolio artifacts to show how you met or struggled with these outcomes.
Critical Thinking/Reading category
• Read texts actively and analytically, identifying the purpose(s) and audience(s) for which a given text has been constructed.
• Make informed connections and distinctions among others' ideas as well as between one's own ideas and those of others.
• Understand knowledge and information as existing within a broader situational and cultural context.
Body paragraph three: Explain how you met or struggled with an outcome from the Writing/Research Processes category. Use specific examples from your portfolio artifacts to show how you met or struggled with these outcomes.
Writing/Research Processes category
• Understand and practice writing as a recursive and strategic process, utilizing prewriting/invention, drafting, revising, and editing.
• Understand the collaborative nature of writing, and demonstrate the ability to critique one's own work and the work of peers.
• Learn the basics of academic research:
o Become familiar with academic databases and library search engines.
o Learn how to assess the credibility of research sites and material.
o Discover the importance of scope in selecting topics and pertinent research.
Body paragraph four: Explain how you met or struggled with an outcome from the Academic Writing Conventions category. Use specific examples from your portfolio artifacts to show how you met or struggled with these outcomes.
Academic Writing Conventions category
• Understand what it means to join an academic "conversation" on a topic.
• Use conventions of structure, style, grammar, mechanics, and format appropriate to the rhetorical situation.
• Practice accurate, ethical, and appropriate usage of primary and secondary sources.
Conclusion: In a few sentences, wrap-up your reflection by explaining how the skills you developed in this course are applicable professionally, academically, and/or socially.