The Digital Portfolio and Final Self-Assessment Essay

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The Digital Portfolio should include, at a minimum, the Final Self-Assessment Essay; final drafts (revised based on instructor feedback) of your Language and Literacy Essay, Researched Exploratory Essay, and Researched Critical Analysis Essay; “compared” versions of your major three major assignments (we’ll go over this in class), plus any additional documents (or portions of documents) you composed this semester that help you demonstrate the extent to which you’ve met the course learning objectives and developed your understanding of writing and our course topic. In order to better orient readers of your Portfolio, you’ll also need to compose introductions to (or abstracts for) each of the documents you showcase, including your major essays.

So what sorts of “additional documents” might you include? Consider including earlier drafts of essays, examples from homework, peer reviews, etc. Or, you may want to include copies of your annotations of course texts or copies of the notes you took while reading to demonstrate that you have developed strategies for critical reading. Use this same approach for all of the Course Learning Goals. (Be mindful that the documents you choose to include in your Portfolio should be referenced in your Final Self-Assessment Essay, which is further explained below. You will describe the documents, and their significance, in your essay. Thus, you’ll need to be very choosy in selecting which documents best represent your learning and development as a writer and be ready to refer to and analyze them in the Final Self-Assessment Essay.)

The portfolio will be composed on a WordPress site and housed securely on CUNY Academic Commons, a password-protected CUNY server. It will be read by your instructors, some members of the class, and other CCNY faculty and administrators. If you would like to opt out of creating a WordPress site, please make a Portfolio in Blackboard. While the arrangement of the Portfolio is up to you, it should be easy to navigate. As with any Web site, you want to be able to find what you’re looking for without any interference. This might mean scanning handwritten notes, taking screenshots of annotated Web sites, and turning your essays into .PDFs or Web texts.

The Final Self-Assessment Essay 

The Final Self-Assessment Essay is a kind of research paper. Your development as a writer is the subject and the writing itself is your evidence. As you write your Final Self-Assessment Essay, you’ll be referring to the works you’ve included in your Portfolio. This essay answers this question: To what extent have I achieved the course learning objectives this semester? This essay will thus provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate how you’ve developed as a writer and thinker this semester and will serve as an introduction to your Portfolio.

Your Self-Assessment Essay should be 3-4 pages (12-point font, 1-inch margins, double spaced) plus any images you choose to include. Your previous self-assessments, homework assignments, and in-class reflections should serve as valuable sources of information and provide you with quote-worthy passages. Please use MLA citation within the body of your essay and on a Works Cited page, and please compose a relative and inviting title for your essay. You are encouraged to personalize the delivery of your essay as you see fit. Thus, you decide the order, tone, style, and language you’ll craft in order to best reach your audience. You’re welcome to draw on your “native,” “home,” or “other” languages, literacies, and ways of being as you so choose.

A final version of your self-assessment essay is due Wednesday, May 15. Your final version of the digital portfolio (with self-assessment essay) is due Friday, May 17. This essay is worth 20% of your Course Grade.

Here are the Course Learning Objectives you will address in your essay: Students will

1. Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations.
2. Develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing.
3. Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations.
4. Engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.
5. Understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences.
6. Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias.
7. Compose texts that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation.

Practice systematic application of citation conventions.

The Final Self-Assessment Essay and Portfolio will not be evaluated on whether or not you have achieved the goals, but on how well you demonstrate your understanding of the goals that you have achieved and your thoughts about the goals that you have not achieved.

Evaluation Criteria for the Portfolio and Final-Assessment Essay	Points Possible
1. Have you effectively composed your final-assessment essay? ●        Have you addressed all of the course learning objectives, even those that you feel you did not spend enough time working on? ●        Have you provided effective evidence, in the form of your own writing and specific learning moments, that you have developed as a writer? Are you able to identify areas in which you have not progressed, either because you didn’t spend enough time with them or you feel that you had a strong start in those areas?	5
3. Have you effectively revised and edited your three major essays?	5
4. Is your portfolio design effective and appropriate for digital audiences? ●       Have you created a portfolio design that is simple and easy to navigate? ●       Have you maintained consistency from one page to the next? ●       Have you used color and contrast to make things simple for your reader? ●       Have you considered font and page layout to create a neat, easy to read text?	10
5. Were all general requirements for length and due date met?
TOTAL POINTS	20