Preparing the
Final Portfolio
English 207
Winter 2013
Due: Wednesday, March
20 no later than 5 p.m. outside HH 212
*Final
revision of final piece
*First
draft of first draft, final piece (doesn’t need to be a clean copy—comments are
fine)
*Blog,
including a minimum of 17 posts and 20 comments on classmates’ blogs (no need
to print this out, simply note the deadline for completion)
*One
significantly revised review (you may even lengthen it if you choose) and your
original draft with my comments
*Process
Writing (see description below)
What is a portfolio?
Most simply, a portfolio is the
folder containing your work for presentation and assessment. It represents you as a writer in this
particular class—your current interests, your development as you reworked and
revised your work, and your range as a budding arts critic. It’s like an artist’s portfolio or a
portfolio a photographer might take to a job interview. But in your case, it contains pieces of
writing instead of watercolors or photographs.
Choose a folder that suits your
personality, embellishing it (or not) in any way you wish.
What is process writing?
Process writing describes the
process you went through when drafting and revising your papers, especially the
final project, and the thinking about yourself as a writer that you engaged in
when preparing the portfolio. The jargon
for this kind of writing is “metacognition”—thinking about thinking. That makes it sound heavy, but it’s actually
relaxing and enjoyable, writing that celebrates the completion of your work for
the course.
“What works best is simply to
record what actually happened [as you reported, wrote and revised your work],
with as much honesty and detail as possible—and with a spirit of calm, benign
acceptance of yourself. That is, you
aren’t trying to judge yourself or prove anything or reach big conclusions—just
to find out what actually goes on when you write” (Elbow and Belanoff, A Community of Writers
12-13).
You don’t have to answer all these
questions, but here are some points to think about as you do your process
writing:
How did you discover a process for
writing reviews?
How did that process change over
time?
When were you frustrated?
What were your breakthroughs?
What are the important changes you
made throughout the quarter with each week’s writing and as you revised?
How did you come up with your
final project idea and what was your writing and research process like?
When were readers’ comments
useful?
When did you find your own way to
solve a problem rather than following the suggestion of your readers? Why did this seem to work better?
When did you disagree with
readers? Why?
What did writing for this course teach you about yourself?
This writing should be typed,
although it doesn’t at all need to be formally written; be as personal and
colloquial as you wish—it’s essentially writing you’re doing for yourself,
though I’ll be reading it, too.
Important: I will not read your portfolio unless you’ve included
process writing—it’s not optional!
What do you need to remember as
you prepare the final versions of your final pieces?
*Double
space it and number your pages, use Times New Roman, 12-pt font and staple it!
*Closely
proofread and copyedit
*Read
your pieces aloud to check smoothness of phrasing and to catch typos. Make sure you are writing consistently in
active voice and past tense.
*Make
sure you’ve attributed adequately and appropriately
These are niggling last-minute details, but allow enough
time to attend to them. Finally, good
luck! Portfolios represent an approach
to writing and learning that I hope you will find as effective as I do.
