Portfolio Instructions

Instructions for Preparing Final Portfolios for
Computer Science/English/Film Studies/Gender & Sexuality 257

Your final portfolio is due by 5 p.m. Saturday, May 9 (for seniors) and by 12:30 pm Friday, May 15 (for all others). In the portfolio, we ask you to collect and reflect on all the work you have done for this course. This portfolio project invites you to chronicle what has happened in your evolution both as a speaker and a writer during the fourteen weeks we’ve been thinking together, and to contribute to our evaluation of your work. So–

* Complete your final 12-pp. paper (or equivalent project). Post it on-line; tag its parent page, “Final Papers/Projects.”

* Gather together everything you’ve written for this class: copies of what you’ve posted in each week’s on-line forum, all your papers, and all the responses you’ve received from us. (To access your comments, go to Site Admin, click the Comments tab, then search for your name.  That should call up all the comments you have made.) Arrange all the archived material in a folder, chronologically, back to front, with the most recent (final) paper on top.

* You are welcome to revise any one of the earlier papers. Be willing, in this process, to engage in major re-thinkings of what you have done already. Remember to include the earlier version.

* Review all you’ve gathered together in the portfolio; ruminate for a while on what you’re seeing as you do so. Then write a short (2 pp.) essay tracing where you were when we began this process, where you are now, and what’s been happening in between. Be specific and descriptive, but also evaluative: How much effort have you put into each of these drafts and their revisions? What can you say about the quality of the final products?

* Review as well your participation in our group work. How frequently have you come to class? How present-and-contributing have you been in our discussions, both large and small, in-person and on-line? What role have you assumed in our group dynamics? (Have you organized our thinking? Played devil’s advocate? Been inclusive–or clarifying–or withdrawn?)

* Think about the relationship between your in-class and on-line contributions: were they congruent or inversely proportional or….?

*Complete the checklist.

In our responses to your portfolio, we’ll be giving you a grade not just for the quality of your written work, but also for class participation and process. Your self-evaluation will assist us with our own.

We very much look forward to seeing what you come up with, as well as what you have to say about it.

In gratitude for the pleasure we have found in the hard work, good play and great company we have found with one another.

Laura and Anne