Your final assignment is to analyze all of the kinds of writing you have done in this course. The goal of this assignment is to give you an opportunity to assess your progress as a writer in this course.

Throughout the semester we have been exploring the ways in which disputants conjecture issues, how values shape those conjectures, ways to resolve or to move toward a solution that would bring about stasis, and the ways in which images and words work together to make effective arguments.

Along the way, you have engaged in a variety of invention strategies (heuristics), and reader response/revision strategies. Your portfolio analysis will provide you with the opportunity to review all of the work you have done this semester to identify the gains you have made in your approaches to writing, and the goals you would like to continue to work on. The focus, then, is on your writing and your strategies for writing.

Assignment and Paper Format:
You will write a three- to four-page portfolio analysis. You may choose to write the analysis in one of two formats, either 1) as an essay or 2) as a letter addressed to me. See the heuristics for the kinds of information to include in your portfolio analysis. As with the other projects, the heuristics are meant to help you generate materials for your paper/letter, so be sure to do these. Also, don’t wait until the last minute. You will want to spend time thinking about what you are finding out through your analysis.

Due Date: Thursday, May 8 between 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM in LL 309B. REMEMBER: You need to turn in 2 copies of your portfolio analysis. If you show up with just one, you will be required to go make a copy.

HEURISTIC ONE: PORTFOLIO ANALYSIS
Looking Backwards and Forwards


Review your writing for the semester—projects, heuristics, peer reviews, notes, drafts, and webboard posts and then address the following:

  1. Consider your accomplishments this term; describe the strengths and weaknesses of your work in this course in terms of both your approaches to writing and your written texts.

  2. Discuss some of the steps you took to reach the objectives you set for yourself in this course. Did your objectives change during the semester? If so, describe how. What new objectives will you set for yourself for future writing tasks?

  3. What strategies will you take away from this semester to use in other classes?


HEURISTIC TWO: PORTFOLIO ANALYSIS
Invention and Planning Activities

Read over the following questions once quickly to provide you with a focus for reviewing all the writing you did this term, including not only your papers and drafts of papers, but also the heuristics, peer responses, plans, notes, WebBoard posts and so on. Together these constitute a portfolio for the course. Examine your portfolio closely, then carefully reread and fully answer the following questions to help you generate information for your portfolio analysis. Use this information to write the analysis of your portfolio. The organization of your analysis need not, and probably should not, follow the order of the questions below.

  1. Which project(s) do you feel especially proud of? Explain why?
  2. Which project (or writing experience) did you learn the most from? Describe what you learned.
  3. Which piece of writing did you find particularly interesting or challenging? Explain why.
  4. Describe some of the heuristics you’ve tried. Which seemed to be successful for you? Explain why.
  5. Review readers’ comments (from your peers and instructor). These comments may be either positive or constructive. Identify one comment that appears on two or more of your papers. A comment that shows up on 2 or more papers probably indicates a strength or a weakness. Briefly describe how you plan to continue to build on this area, if it is a strength, or how you plan to improve in this area, if it is a weakness.
  6. Discuss how your participation on the WebBoard (constructing responses and responding to others) helped you in your writing.
  7. In reviewing your portfolio, what surprises you about the writing you completed for this class? What surprises you about the approaches you’ve used to do the writing?

HEURISTIC THREE: PORTFOLIO ANALYSIS
Assessing Course Objectives

  1. Referring back to the course policy sheet, you will find the following statement of course objectives:

    The mission of ASU’s Writing Programs is to introduce students to the importance of writing in the work of the university and to develop their critical reading, thinking and writing skills so that they can successfully participate in that work. Writing is intellectual work, and the demands of writing within the university community include the need:

    • to synthesize and analyze multiple points of view;
    • to articulate and support one’s own position regarding various issues; and
    • to adjust writing to multiple audiences, purposes, and conventions.

    In reviewing your portfolio, try to determine and describe some of the steps you took to reach these objectives. Which, if any, of these objectives do you see as having been fulfilled this semester.

  2. In addition to the program wide objectives listed above, the following course specific objectives are also detailed in the course policy statement:

    Like English 101, English 102 is designed to help students develop sophisticated, situation-sensitive reading and writing strategies. The course emphasizes the importance of all stages of students' writing processes, including invention, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading. The writing projects in the course prepare students for the specific demands of persuasive writing:

    • using a variety of argumentative strategies to write for a variety of audiences;
    • expressing a working knowledge of key rhetorical features, such as audience, situation, and the use of appropriate argument strategies;
    • using conventions of format, structure, and language appropriate to the purpose of the written texts;
    • developing and supporting an argument that is convincing to a particular audience;
    • engaging in a variety of research methods to study and explore the topics, including fieldwork as well as library and Internet research;

    In further reviewing your portfolio, try to determine and describe some of the steps you took to reach these objectives. Which, if any, of these objectives do you see as having been fulfilled this semester.

  3. The list of objectives continues as follows:

    Taking one more look at your portfolio, try to determine and describe some of the steps you took to reach these objectives. Which, if any, of these objectives do you see as having been fulfilled this semester.


HEURISTIC FOUR: PORTFOLIO ANALYSIS
Portfolio Analysis Checklist

This heuristic may provide you with guidance as you write but it is also meant to serve as a check on your analysis once you’ve drafted it; your responses should help you revise it. Review your analysis to answer the following questions.

  1. Is the analysis complete? What else might you discuss in your analysis to provide a full picture of your progress as a writer this semester?
  2. Is the analysis clearly organized? That is, is it easy to follow? How might you improve the overall organization?
  3. Do you provide specific evidence (e.g., quotations and/or examples) from your portfolio to support the ideas in the analysis? Do you need additional evidence?
  4. What rhetorical situation have you constructed for this piece of writing (targeted audience, purpose, context)? Why have you made these choices?
  5. Based on past papers you have written (here or elsewhere), what aspects of your writing do you want to look at more closely as you work on your final revision?

 

 

Special Thanks to Dr. Maureen Daly Goggin from whom I pilfered this assignment.