Writing Portfolio Your Writing Portfolio is an online space where you gather artifacts of your writing and make an argument about how those artifacts demonstrate how you have achieved the FWP Outcomes (which are adapted from Drexel’s Student Learning Outcomes for Communication). Your tool for constructing this argument is reflective analysis, a process by which you closely examine a variety of your own writing over a period of time. Reflective analysis helps you to make an evidence-based argument about yourself, a skill that will help you not only here at Drexel, but also outside of Drexel. In your academic and professional life, it will be important to establish and reflect on goals, to periodically examine what you have accomplished, and to ask critical questions about your learning: What did I hope to accomplish in this class/project/experience? How did I grow as a person, scholar, or professional? What evidence do I have for that growth? How does this growth prepare me for what is next? In many contexts, you will be asked to discuss, either in person or in writing, what kind of student or employee you will be. In these contexts, you will be most convincing to your audiences if you can provide some proof for the claims you make about your abilities and potential. Reflective analysis can help you to provide a basis upon which to make these claims. As you move through the FWP sequence, the Writing Portfolio will give you lots of practice in doing reflective analysis, which will help you to work toward two of the FWP Outcomes (and others, too): Students will reflect on their own and others’ writing and communication processes and practices. They will learn that the term “writer” applies to themselves and their peers. Students will use writing to embrace complexity and think about open-ended questions. The skills you gain by closely examining your compositions, and by making larger claims about your writing abilities based on the composition artifacts you include, will help to prepare you for the reflective analysis you will be asked to do later in your academic and professional life. English 102 Writing Portfolio and Reflective Analysis Assignment In this culminating assignment of the course, you will use the English 102 area of your iWebfolio to display at least four artifacts of your writing and a reflective analysis that explains how those artifacts provide evidence for your writing development. You will use the FWP Outcomes as a basis for analysis. Components of the Reflective Analysis: Your Reflective Analysis should accomplish four tasks: It should make an argument about your writing development. Read the FWP Outcomes and choose ONE of the Outcomes as the focus for your argument. You have lots of options here. It should use artifacts of your own writing as evidence for your argument. Specif
ically, you should integrate the following artifacts as sources in your analysis: 1 major project from 101 1 major project from 102 2 informal compositions from either 101 or 102 Any other supporting artifacts you would like to use It should do “meta-analysis” of those artifacts as it makes its argument. “Meta-analysis” is your examination of your own work, your writing-about-your-writing. It should be directed to a specific audience: Professional employer, friend, teacher, parent or guardian, future child, yourself…you choose. Citing Artifacts of Your Own Writing: In your reflective analysis, you should, of course, provide proper in-text citation of your sources, just as you would with any other source in a composition. In this case, however, your sources are your own compositions; so, you’ll be citing yourself. Here is an example: In my second project for English 101, I discuss the impact of drafting on my writing development: “I have always drafted because I have been required to. But I really wanted to reflect analytically on how the process of drafting actually impacted my overall writing development. Was I becoming a ‘better’ writer?” (“Drafting and Development” 1). Additionally, you should include full citations in a Works Cited. Here’s how: Works Cited Last name, First name. “Title of Project.” Course Title. Professor ______ _______. Department, Institution. Date project was submitted. Form of Media (Print, Web, etc.). —. “Title of Project.” Course Title. Professor ______ _______. Department, Institution. Date project was submitted. Form of Media (Print, Web, etc.). And so on… Organizing Your Artifacts in iWebfolio: Create each artifact as an ITEM in iWebfolio, and add a preface to the item in which you explain its original context (when it was written, in what situation, and for what purpose or in response to what). Note: In iWebfolio, Items are different than Files in that Items are created and formatted to be viewed within the portfolio, while Files are linked to and must be downloaded; unless we arrange otherwise (in the case of an unusual text that can’t be represented as an Item), all of your artifacts in the portfolio should be ITEMS. Within your Drexel Writing Portfolio, add your artifacts to the English 102 Category of your portfolio using Add Attachment (and then select Item in the pull-down menu to view Items you’ve created). Add your reflective analysis to the main body of the English 102 area of the portfolio using the Edit feature. Keep in Mind Your reflection is not a place to try to make your professor feel good about your growth as a writer; it is a space for your honest reflection about your own work. In your reflective analysis keep your focus on the argument you have established and use the compositions you have provided as evidence.