English2000

Mid-Term Portfolios:  Due Thursday, March 13
[Note: Go to Settings/Permissions in order to allow only me to read your blog.]

Introduction: Imagine that you are me and that at some point, some well-intentioned administrator might wonder about my grading practices. I would like to be able to give her for each student a fair example of the student's work and the student's reflection on what he or she had learned in the course. So imagine that your portfolio is that evidence of the grade that I would like to argue for in response to this well-intentioned administrator.

So: Consider the portfolio as a presentation of what you have done and learned in this class.  Here were my course objectives:

1. Increase your comfort with your writing.

2. Improve your abilities to respond in writing to others.

3. Improve your style, the flow of your sentences.

4. Improve adherence to conventions and investigate the social function of conventions.

5. Enhance your understanding of critical thinking.

6. Review the fundamentals of argument.

7. Learn how to create and maintain a blog on an issue of your choice.

8. Learn how to create a webpage to use for your midterm and final portfolio

For the first seven weeks, we have largely worked on objectives 1-4, so in your mid-term portfolio, keeps those objectives in mind as you explain what you have done and learned in this class. To organize your response, I have created some categories with specific instructions.  Please look at the pages to the wright, beginning with "Attendance."

On this main webpage, you might simply introduce your portfolio. Imagine an administrator other than me is going to read it.  This would be a good place to tell her just a little bit about you, something about your major,  your hopes for the kind of career that college might help you prepare for, and some statement about how you have created this portfolio to demonstrate the kind of work you have done and what you have learned about writing in this class.

[As you post some examples of your writing, feel free to add to it or change it in any way; for example, if you spot a mispelling, you might change it (did you catch that one?).]