Click here for a pdf or here for a word doc of your portfolio instructions, rubric, and sample cover letter.
The “Final Reflection on Learning,” based on students' portfolios of ERWC work, has been designed to give you--as well as me-- an opportunity to review and reflect on your learning that look place through long-term engagement in the ERWC. The portfolio letter you will compose can provide information and insights about your growth and your needs for future academic literacy development. This final assignment asks you to examine ERWC documents generated through this course, select specific documents (including a quick write, an annotated text, a summary, and three essays) and analyze those documents. You are expected to analyze those documents to explain how your reading and writing processes and your progress are manifested in them. You will also complete the Student Learning Outcomes Self-Assessment to evaluate your own progress. The list of outcomes in the self-assessment mirrors those that appeared in an activity enlaced in the introduction to ERWC (Unit 1). You can draw upon your analysis of selected documents and your Self-Assessment to write a portfolio reflection letter. Questions that are part of the assignment provide you with inquiry-oriented guidelines to develop your letters. Some of these questions encourage you to examine your work to discover how your reading and writing processes may have changed, and to find specific examples in your work that provide evidence of those changes. Other questions urge you to identify your strengths and weaknesses as readers and writers, to discuss how expectations for your reading and writing of texts have changed and to consider how well prepared you believe you are for the academic reading and writing you may face after high school. As usual, a rubric will be used for the assessment of the portfolio letter, which can serve as a means of evaluating your performance in the course. The rubric includes an array of student learning outcomes in reading and writing, such as analyzing texts through annotation and summary, understanding and applying key rhetorical concepts, writing analytical and organized texts that are focused on a central idea, and citing textual evidence to support claims. In order to demonstrate that you are college-ready at the end of the ERWC, you should present portfolios that are adequate in most--although not necessarily all--of the categories set out in the Portfolio Criteria.
Maintaining a Portfolio of Your WorkYou have had access to your completed work throughout the course, including not only essays, but also quick writes, annotated texts and summaries. These were to be kept in pocket folders to ensure they don't get lost as you are expected to submit your original work.
What Benefits Come with the Portfolio Letter?Beyond the self-regulatory and goal-setting benefits that arise from your analysis of work done over an entire course, teachers benefit from student portraits of progress in class. When viewed as a set, the portfolios contribute to a composite picture of the class that enables teachers to detect patterns of improvement and needs for instructional modifications that can engage their teaching. Furthermore, the individual portfolio letters, formed in the context of student learning goals for ERWC, can help teachers decide what grade best reflects a student's performance in the course. In short, it helps us teachers know how we and our students are doing!
Activities to Complete
Activity 1: Charting Progress in the ERWC - Where Am I? And Where Am I Going?
Activity 2: Preparing the Portfolio - Where Was I? Where Am I? and Where Am I Going?
Activity 4: The Portfolio and the Portfolio Letter
Required Documents - The following are numbered into sections. You will separate and label each of the sections in an obvious way in your portfolio folder/binder using tabs or dividers.
Annotated text with rationale - Rationales are typed
Summary with rationale - Rationales are typed
Three essays (each one from early, middle, and late phases of the course)
Format Assemble the portfolio in the order listed above (i.e. “required documents”) in a binder. Organize each section together (paper should not be loose, or all clustered together). Make a title/cover page: include your name, the course name, and your teacher's name (see sample title page following the portfolio criteria rubric). If your binder is not organized and I cannot easily find a certain section that section may not be counted in your final score.