Mid-Term Portfolio Assignment

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. The portfolio will give you a fair indication of how you’re doing at this point in the class, so that you can better determine what you’ll need to do in the second half to meet your goals.

This portfolio will be scored by a group of Seton Hall writing instructors in order to give you a more consensual assessment of your performance at mid-term. The possible scores are High Pass, Pass, and Fail. The portfolio is due [here you can fill in the blank, but obviously we must have all of them by Friday, Oct. 27].

The mid-term portfolio is comprised of three separate parts:

1. One revised essay with attached drafts. The final revision should be a clean printout, if at all possible, 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. A sample of two pieces of informal writing (for example, journal responses, focused freewriting).

3. A self-assessment (2-3 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.

Place all the above pieces in a manila folder or the like.

Directions for Self-Assessment

1. What specific writing skills have you learned in this class up to this point in the semester? Briefly explain how these skills have helped you as a writer by referring to specific parts of the revised essay.

2. Assess the writing difficulties you faced coming into the course 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. (You might want to combine #2 with #1 above.)

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).

4. Discuss how, and to what extent, the reading skills you’ve learned in this class have helped you with the reading you’ve done both in and outside of this class.

5. Make an evaluation of yourself as a writer outside of this writing class. How have the skills that you've learned in this class been useful in other courses?