English 100 Portfolio Evaluation

The use of portfolio evaluation in English 100 allows for three primary practices: 1. collaboration and dialogue among students and instructors for determining community writing standards; 2. evaluative focus placed on both the transformation of writers (people) and final products (assignments), and 3. reflective pedagogy. By briefly elaborating on the above three practices (which overlap in a variety of ways), the following introduction shows how the English 100 portfolio system is integrated into the model syllabus, providing the purpose for which most classroom practices aim toward – the composition of a mid-term and final portfolio submitted with cover letters for evaluation.

 

I.               Collaboration and Dialogue

 

What makes writing good, average, or poor? A portfolio grading system seeks to answer this question, which is introduced during the first week of class, through collaboration and dialogue. Rather than assuming an a priori set of criteria (rubric or holistic grading), the criteria and standards for judging good writing come from in-class dialogues between students and students and instructors. Through a series of whole class discussions about student papers and readings, peer review, student-instructor conferences, and individual presentations, students are "eased" into the habit of being self-reflective about their own and their peers' writing. For example, throughout the semester, instructors guide students through oral discussions of texts by modeling the questions and kinds of criticisms a university audience may have about a piece of writing. The whole class discussion is then reinforced by student-instructor conferences, peer review, oral presentations, and discussions of readings all of which serve to help students practice and take up the language used in a university to critique and revise writing. Finally, over the course of the semester, in-class conversations both oral and written look forward to students compiling their portfolios and writing their cover letters. Cover letters are intended for students to demonstrate how well they understand their own writing processes, the expectations of a university community with regard to effective writing, and they are used to help grade portfolios (discussed below). The more students are able to participate and use reflective language about writing in the classroom the better their reflections about their writing will be in their cover letters.

 

 

Collaboration extends beyond the writing classroom to include collaborative evaluation among instructors in English 790. Through the use of teaching trios, instructors share and discuss students' writing from their classes. In this way, summative evaluation (or grading) is done with the support of colleagues rather than in isolation. Evidence shows that it is much easier for instructors to learn about their "actual" criteria and standards for grading in conversation with colleagues. Therefore, rather than conducting top-down "norming" sessions that may be disconnected from the practices of the writing classroom, collaborative grading allows instructors to take responsibility for establishing grading criteria and standards which emerge from immediate classroom experience. Collaborative grading of portfolios also helps provide a flexible method for achieving consistency in grading across the English 100 program. To achieve program consistency and help instructors develop grading standards a portion of English 790 is devoted, therefore, to grading mid-term portfolios. Finally, both the in-class dialogues and dialogues between instructors in E790 help students and instructors become aware of the various academic audiences which determine the standards of effective writing. Through the various conversations which continue throughout the semester, students and instructors learn together how one might answer the question what makes writing good? Perhaps most importantly the collaborative nature of a portfolio system mimics the way a community determines standards and criteria for effective writing through social interaction.

 

 

II.             Evaluative Focus

 

What is the focus of evaluation in English 100? The goal of portfolio grading is to strike a balance between product and process. In other words, a student's increased facility with assessing their own writing process is just as important as their ability to produce a well-shaped product which meets standard rubric-like criteria, so portfolio grading focuses on both the transformation of writers (people) as well as the quality of products (assignments). Consequently, portfolios are graded as a whole, and each piece of writing in a portfolio can be used to showcase a student's best piece(s) of writing or provide evidence for a student's self assessment of his or her writing process and growth. A portfolio's cover letter is very important because it is the written venue in which students demonstrate their facility with the language (or meta-language) and criteria of the university to evaluate their own writing process and product. Therefore, the cover letter represents a high stakes rhetorical situation for student writers in which an instructor can determine how well a student is adopting the language of the university and growing as a writer.

 

As discussed above in section one, "Collaboration and Dialogue," instructors develop their standards and criteria for grading portfolios over the course of the semester. However, it is helpful to have something with which to begin those conversations. Below is a list of three general areas of criteria instructors can use to begin their discussion and formation of grading criteria. Through dialogue with students and instructors, and by reading the portfolios/essays from other classes in teaching trios, each instructor can mold/shape the criteria below into a set of standards/criteria to be used for grading portfolios. These standards may eventually take the shape of a rubric, map, holistic criteria, a set of criteria developed with students, or some other kind of document for grading mid-term and final portfolios. Each instructor will find his or her own balance between process and product.

 

Three General Criteria for Beginning Conversations about Portfolio Assessment as adopted   from the "Communications A Criteria" and Course Objectives:

 

Personal and Community Engagement

A principle objective of English 100 is practice with the writing process, including peer review. Therefore, the writing in student portfolios will be graded on the level of engagement with the writing a student demonstrates in his or her portfolio. A portfolio that demonstrates a high level of engagement with the writing process means that it contains all the writing assignment drafts leading up to and including the drafts selected for the portfolio, demonstrates that the student has engaged with peer review, and shows that a student has achieved a high level of meta-cognitive reflection about their writing process and writing ability. In other words, they demonstrate felicity/mastery of the language and criteria used during the course of the semester to evaluate effective writing.

 

Rhetorical Sensitivity

Writing in portfolios will be graded on students' abilities to write for various audiences and make choices based on audience needs. In other words, the writing in portfolios should demonstrate students' abilities to integrate sources ethically, respect needs of a reader and understand the demands of each genre contained in the portfolio, including the cover letter.

 

Writerly Knowledge

 

Writing in portfolios will be graded on students' abilities to use the tools of language at a high level. This means students' writing demonstrates the use of accurate grammar and syntax. Students should also demonstrate an ability to write with a complex style in which they sustain the communication and organization of complex ideas. An ability to navigate the complexities of language also includes demonstrating the use of language for reading and textual analysis, including retrieval and evaluation of information for the purpose of research.

 

 

 

III.           Pedagogical Benefits

 

Instructors can learn a lot from portfolios if they are reflective about the way in which portfolios provide a framework for classroom activities and discussion. For instance, instructors can learn how well students understand their own writing process, what students already know and what they need from instructors, how students become increasingly aware of the demands of different genres and writing situations, what students assume about writing, how writers change over time, how students use similar techniques in different writing situations, and what standards students use to judge good writing – just to name a few of the things instructors can learn about student writers. Instructors can also learn a lot about their own teaching. By reflecting on the way students contribute to conversations about writing and on their own conversations about writing, instructors can learn what classroom strategies/ teaching methods work best, understand what they really value in writing, develop their own teaching portfolios, make informed changes to their teaching style and technique, and share successful teaching strategies – to mention only a few of things instructors can learn about their own teaching. A portfolio and critical self-reflection, therefore, has pedagogical benefits for students and instructors helping both set and achieve goals – for students as writers, and for instructors as educators.