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Senior Seminar Portfolios

Instructions to faculty: Submit a copy of each student’s portfolio, names redacted and without grading marks, to the School of Language and Literature  administrative assistant via Google Drive or email attachments. 

The assessment committee will read the 2000-level paper and the 4335 final paper. These elements must be collected for portfolios.

Sample Portfolio Assignment #1

Our course culminates with your submission of a portfolio. Your portfolio must include the following components in the following order: 

  1. A title page that lists your name, major(s), minor(s), date of enrollment at UCA, and date of expected graduation from UCA.
  2. A 500- to 750-word reflection on your growth as a reader, writer, and critical thinker during your time as an English major at UCA.
  3. Your final paper for ENGL 4335 Senior Seminar. See the separate prompt for that assignment in our Bb online classroom for more information about preparing this portion of the portfolio assignment.
  4. A paragraph or two assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your final paper for ENGL 4335 Senior Seminar. This paragraph must address the following questions:
    1. What is this piece’s central purpose? Answer this question by selecting the right verb to describe your intentions as a writer (i.e., interpret, persuade, recast, revise, challenge, explore, etc.).
    2. What process did you use to complete the paper? 
    3. Did anything about this paper’s conception or execution surprise you?
    4. How well do you work with primary- and secondary-source material in this paper?
    5. What are the paper’s central strengths?
    6. What areas of this paper show that you still have room to grow? Why do you point to these areas in particular?
  5. A paper you completed for a lower-level English course at UCA. Typically, students select a relatively short essay (three to six pages) they completed in ENGL 2312, 2313, 2316, or 2319 for this portion of the portfolio. However, you also might select an essay you completed for ENGL 2305, 2306, 2370, 2380, or 2390. Just make sure the essay is one that required you to offer an original argument about literary texts and to support that argument by reading literature closely. 
  6. A paragraph or two assessing the strengths and weaknesses of this essay you submitted in a lower-level English course. Make sure the assessment paragraph addresses the same questions listed under item 4. 
  7. A paper you completed for an upper-division English course that you finished prior to taking ENGL 4335. Make sure this essay is one that required you to offer an original argument about literary texts and to support that argument by reading literature closely. 
  8. A paragraph or two assessing the strengths and weaknesses of this other UD English course paper. Make sure the assessment paragraph addresses the same questions listed under item 4.

Using running pagination across all sections of the final portfolio. Insert a page break between sections of the portfolio. Upload your completed portfolio as a Microsoft Word document.

Sample Portfolio Assignment #2

Senior Seminar: Romance as Genre

Description and Rubric

The purpose of the portfolio assignment is to provide an opportunity to assess your own growth and evolution during the course of your undergraduate career. You should look at both your development as a literary scholar and as a writer by reviewing papers written earlier in your career and comparing them with your work now. While you’re compiling the portfolio for that reason, the English Department’s assessment committee will also use them to assess how well the BA in English program is helping students to develop.  Most of the points for this portfolio will come from the thoughtfulness and depth of your self-assessment, which will be represented by the 500-word reflective essay and the self-assessment forms accompanying the other papers.   

 Here’s what to include:

  1. Ungraded copies of both papers written for this class, the close reading and the research paper. 
  2. At least one paper from a 2000-level survey course (ENGL 2312, 2313, 2316, 2319). If you were a transfer student, this paper can be one written for your previous institution.
  3. At least one paper from a 3000- or 4000-level course.
  4. One self-assessment paragraph appended for each item 1-3.  See the attached page. 
  5. One 500-word essay that assesses your growth and development as a writer, thinker, and literary scholar over the course of your undergraduate career.  This essay should focus on your papers and use them to answer the following questions.:
    1. What strengths did you enter the program with and what strengths do you think you’ve developed while you’ve been here?  
    2. What weaknesses did you have and do you still have them or have you improved in any way?  
    3. What are the particularly valuable things have you learned being an English major?  
    4. What do you wish you had learned?

 RUBRIC: Here’s how the point values for the portfolio will break down.

 

Inclusion of the two papers for this course:                                                    0-20 points _____

Inclusion of one paper from a 2000-level survey course:                               0-20 points _____

Inclusion of one paper from a 3000- or 4000-level course:                            0-20 points _____

Self-assessment paragraphs, one for each item 1-4                                        0-40 points _____

Reflective essay                                                                                              0-100 points _____

 

                                                                                                                        Total     ________

 

 Student Self-Assessment Paragraphs, English Major Portfolio 

Append (enter as a new first page) the self-assessment paragraph as the first page of each item 1-3 (on the list above) in the portfolio. To do this:

  1. Start at the top of the page. On the left margin, type your name, and then double space and type “Self-Assessment: Essay for [Instructor’s name], [semester and year of the course]” (without the quotation marks or brackets, of course). 
  2. Type the paragraph, responding to the prompts below. 
  3. Once you have typed the paragraph, use “Insert: page break” to make it the new first page for that essay. 

Then in the paragraph, describe the following:

  1. What was your purpose in writing this paper (persuasive, analytical, informational, interpretive)
  2. Describe the process you used to compose the paper.
  3. What surprised you in the process of writing this paper?
  4. How well do you incorporate primary and secondary source material into the paper?
  5. What do you think the paper’s most serious weaknesses are?
  6. What do you think the paper’s greatest strengths are?