Preparing the Portfolio

In order to pass this college writing course, you must submit a portfolio containing samples of your writing to another instructor, an outside reader who will determine whether your work meets standards set by the ARCC English Division.

For English 0950 Elements of College Writing

Your portfolio must include four papers:

For English 1121 College Writing and Critical Reading

Your portfolio must include four papers:

All portfolios must be presented in the following manner:

1. Submit all papers to your instructor in this required cover.

2. Submit the revised papers written out of class typed on unlined 8 1/2 x 11" paper. These papers should contain no comments in the margins or at the end.

3. Submit all papers, including the in-class writing, with copies of the assignment on which the writings are based or with a sheet of paper indicating the textbook and pages from which the assignments are taken.

4. Attach each assignment's drafts with a paper clip to the copy of the assignment and the final draft.

Your portfolio will be graded either pass or fail and may be read by at least one independent reader, usually another instructor in the English Division. Your teacher and the outside reader may also assign a letter grade to your work.

Your portfolio readers will check to see that each paper in your portfolio is acceptable college-level work in each of the following areas:

• Each paper must have a clear purpose.
• Each paper must have a form of organization which is easy to follow.
• Each paper must be supported with sufficient detail or evidence for its purpose.
• Each paper must have a consistent tone appropriate to its purpose and audience.
• Each paper must be well edited and generally free of errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, and usage.

Your portfolio reader will expect your in-class paper to be less polished than a revised piece. Your reader will be more tolerant of editing errors and insufficient detail.

The primary purpose of the in-class piece is to see what you can do on your own. (Your instructor may allow you to plan the in-class paper in advance and bring notes or an outline with you to class when you write the paper. You may also consult a dictionary while you write this essay.) Your reader will check to make sure this piece is consistent with the other writing in your portfolio. If your revised papers are substantially better, your reader will look at your previous drafts to make sure that your final drafts were clearly the result of the work you did revising earlier drafts. If the various drafts show sudden, unexplained leaps in progress and the initial drafts are just as undeveloped and rife with errors as the in-class writing, the reader may conclude that much of the writing is not your own and fail the portfolio.

There are several circumstances that may cause your portfolio to fail:

1. If it does not contain the required papers and accompanying assignments, notes, and drafts.

2. If after consulting copies of the assignments your reader can still not determine what you were trying to accomplish in any two given papers.

3. If your papers contain too many serious errors which include:

• Run-on sentences
• Inappropriate fragments
• Lack of agreement between nouns and verbs or nouns and pronouns with a common referent
• Pronouns without clear antecedents
• Faulty parallelism
• Lack of consistency in tenses
• Misspelled words
• Punctuation errors that interfere with readability

 PLEASE NOTE: The two most common reasons why portfolios fail are

(a) because the papers lack focus--the writer is unable to concentrate on a key point of theme, and

(b) the papers lack detail--the writer is unable to develop a key point or theme beyond trivial generalizations and a weak supporting statement or two.