Assignment Types

Portfolios

As a product, a portfolio is a collection of student work that exhibits the writer's efforts and achievements. As a process, portfolio writing permits both writers and readers to reflect on the writer's body of work.

Strengths

As a major project, it

can emerge from the writing students do as a regular part of their course work
has the potential to move with the student across a program or major
affords students opportunities to reflect on their writing as a regular part of their course work
permits the instructor to assess students' cumulative work holistically

Types

Portfolios can be formative or summative, or a combination of the two. Formative portfolios are works in progress and, therefore, should be responded to as such. They are valuable to the learning process in that they allow students to formulate--and, thus, test--their ideas without penalty. Summative portfolios are summaries or products. They allow students to demonstrate their knowledge in a cumulative fashion.

Students might initially operate formatively, writing (short papers, journal entries, microthemes, e-mail correspondences among class members, for example) to learn about the course material. Later in the semester, students might assess their work, select (possibly with input from their instructor) representative documents for evaluation, and create additional ones as their instructor specifies. They might then add an introductory essay reflecting on their cumulative learning experience, organize the documents in a folder with an appropriate coversheet and table of contents, and submit the portfolio as the product of their semester's work.

Tips for Instructors

To organize a portfolio project, instructors need to identify:

the purpose of the portfolio in terms of the larger course goals
the audience for the portfolio
the nature of the portfolio: formative or summative, or a combination
possible contents of the portfolio
aspects of the portfolio, in addition to documents and/or artifacts that establish the context and exhibit reflection (for example, a table of contents, or an introductory or reflective essay)
criteria for success based on how the portfolio contributes to the course goals

Note: This list includes extracts from criteria suggested by Kathleen Blake Yancey (unpublished handout 1993).

As with all term projects, portfolios are most likely to succeed if instructors:

communicate criteria for success and means of assessment at the time the assignment is given
build in checkpoints throughout the semester
incorporate the project into the course activities

Term Projects

Although there are several types of formal writing, this document will focus on term projects. Projects are useful to consider: they can offer a welcome relief to both students and teachers from the traditional library-based research paper, and they can actually anchor a course. If the project is positioned as the culminating or pivotal course activity, other tasks can be devised in relation or response to it.

Like all other assignments, term projects need to be tied to course goals. Term projects vary widely, depending on the demands of a discipline and the teaching preferences of faculty. In choosing the type of term project for your course, you might find these questions helpful:

What do I want students to accomplish in terms of the larger course goals?
What sorts of projects will contribute to students' academic growth?
What sorts of projects are consistent with the work in my field?
What research resources are available for students to complete the project?
What type of project do I have the time for and the interest in evaluating?

Project Types

Although the thesis-support library research paper is the traditional major project, other types of research projects may prove appropriate for specific class goals:

Annotated bibliographies promote a wide exposure to the literature of a field;
An introduction, concluding essay, or professional statement can turn a series of microthemes, an annotated bibliography, or a journal into a semester project. With a table of contents and appropriate binding, the student will have a valuable finished product that has been produced throughout the semester with a synthesizing activity at the end.
Portfolios may be a job-search booster for students in professional programs, especially if organized with a table of contents and a student statement. Contents will vary by discipline, course, and level of students;
A poster presentation requires the same research as a major paper. In addition, the student is challenged to grapple with the material in order to present it in the confined space of a poster accurately, clearly, and attractively.

Whatever their structure, term projects benefit by being segmented so that students can have clear guideposts to keep them on track, and teachers have checkpoints to intervene if students are getting off task. Segments might include some of the following: a statement of purpose or a prospectus submitted early in the course, a working thesis statement or hypothesis submitted on a notecard, an annotated bibliography submitted during library research, a preliminary outline, a progress report on research and/or writing the paper, a draft, and an oral presentation or a poster presentation of work in progress in order to elicit peer feedback. As with the structure of the project, how it is segmented should be driven by the goals of the project in terms of the larger course goals.

Accounting For Writing in the Project

Working with major projects in college means engaging, exploring, and challenging ideas instead of accepting "truth." It also means learning to write for a readership broader than the teacher. Many students may be writing a college-level extended paper for the first time in your class. Others may have written several, though not in a field with standards similar to yours. Perhaps only marginally equipped with research skills and with limited practice writing major papers, they may have difficulty managing information and communicating their thoughts clearly. You can help them reach your standards by:

designing assignments that explain how the project meets course goals and is appropriate to the field of study;
anticipating library research skills necessary for the project;
communicating expectations explicitly. Because students write for several disciplines in a single semester, they benefit from being reminded what a "good" paper consists of in this field, and what a "good" paper looks like. Should the paper have a cover sheet? Headings? Should supplemental material be placed in an appendix?
explaining how to avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism often is the result of students not knowing how to manage information according to the standards of a field. What needs to be cited in a typical paper in your field of study? How extensively are quotations used in a typical paper in your discipline? What is your preferred citation method? Where can the students find examples of it?
providing heuristics that will help them revise their document systematically;
segmenting project deadlines to give students guideposts and yourself checkpoints.

Term Project Tips

Consider using a term project to anchor your course. Projects provide cohesion and structure for your class. They benefit students by affording them opportunity to take authority for their course work in a systematic, scaffolded fashion, and by permitting them to engage in learning as a process while producing a product. The instructor benefits as well because projects allow teachers to manage time efficiently; that is, after an initial time investment to design the project, teachers have to devote very little time to monitoring student work until the final project is submitted.

A term project is most effective if it is designed to be a capstone for the course and the student's course work. That is, all of the parts of the project need to culminate in a final product that is consistent with the broader goals of the course while providing sufficient flexibility to permit the student to explore a topic that is relevant to his or her other studies and interests.

Project Tips

Here are some suggestions to help you design a term project:

Design the project from your course goals. If, for example, you want students to place major western civilization themes in the context of contemporary issues, design a project that will move students from themes considered in the abstract to application to contemporary life.
Decide whether you want individual or group projects. (Group projects require special strategies and planning that is beyond the scope of this document. Contact Writing Consulting: Faculty Resources if you are interested in discussing group-project strategies.)
Consider what prior knowledge students need to complete the project. What information will they need? Where will they get it? What resources are available through the reference librarians? (It is always courteous to contact the reference librarians if you anticipate that students will be using their services.)
Situate the project within your curriculum. How much of the course credit is to be earned through the project? Too much weight placed on a project leaves you with few opportunities to recognize daily work; too little weight will yield a poor project because grade-conscious students will realize that the effort to yield a good project will not pay off for them.
Segment the project; that is, chunk it out so that students can accomplish portions of it systematically, and so that you can confirm that students are on track. (This strategy also combats plagiarism.) Although it is wise to require that students demonstrate their progress by submitting paperwork or presenting progress reports to class or groups, it is not necessary that you expend excessive time grading the project in progress. Instead, consider merely giving progress credit.
Build a calendar to confirm that individual segments and your project as a whole can be completed in the time you have allocated. Set deadlines for the students to submit segments of the project for progress credit.
Assign the project in written form so that no misunderstandings arise as the semester progresses. At a minimum, include the goals of the project in terms of the larger course, the assignment itself, deadlines, formatting information, and credit for the project.
Provide opportunities through checklists and peer review sessions for students and their peers to evaluate portions of the projects as they are in progress. A well-orchestrated peer review session will yield well-edited projects.
Provide opportunities for the students to see their peers' final projects so that they can learn from the research of their peers. Students might, circulate brief summaries of their projects, or they could present an oral report or give a short demonstration, depending on the nature of the project.
Consider incorporating the project into the final exam. An exam question might ask students to summarize their projects or discuss them in some other way. Such a strategy will give credit for research efforts and will also help confirm that the projects were the students' own work.
For future use: ask permission of students to photocopy exemplary projects to share with future classes; keep notes on ways to improve the project and the timeline for subsequent semesters.

Examples

The following are a few examples of projects that have worked:

Short papers into a project: Teachers wanting students to write short papers throughout the semester may still design a cumulative project. Over the course of the semester, students write a series of short papers (three or four) on topics that can be grouped under a larger category. (These papers may be graded individually, reducing the time required for reading the final submission.) The students then write an introduction that ties the series of papers into the larger goals for the course. After writing a table of contents and giving the entire project a title, they submit the project as a single document. (A modification of this might use a variety of course assignments--for example, a book review, a short paper, and microthemes--with the introduction and title demonstrating the student's understanding of the place of the individual writings in terms of the whole course.)
Annotated bibliography: Teachers wanting students to have research opportunities and to learn to annotate may design a project around a bibliography. Students are taught how to annotate and are instructed in the proper form for a given documentation system. Then they are assigned a specific number of bibliographic entries for each of the course's themes. After organizing the bibliography, students write an introduction, placing the annotations in the larger context of their course work. They submit the completed document in a binder. [Project designed by Jean Attebury.]
Thematic portfolio: Teachers who want students to apply western civilization themes to contemporary issues may assign the students to develop a portfolio that examines a contemporary issue of the student's selection in terms of a course theme. The portfolio could consist of a series of small projects designed to encourage the student to learn about the theme and the contemporary issue. For example, as evidence of exploring the contemporary issue, the portfolio might include a microtheme on a journal article, a transcript or a tape of an interview with an expert, photocopies with annotations (or an annotated bibiliography) of magazine and newspaper articles. The relevant theme might be represented by highlighted or annotated class notes, and microthemes or annotated bibliographies of each of the course readings on the theme. The student would then write an introduction to the portfolio that demonstrates understanding of the relation between the theme and the contemporary issue.