Portfolio

Exercise 5: “Worldview Screen” — Portfolio Reflection

  • due Sun­day 01-May *(un­less sub­mit­ting af­ter Re­vised Project)
  • 5 points; 500 words (min­i­mum; 600 max) 
  • post doc in D2L
    –or– record screen­cast video, show­ing and dis­cussing work (from script, not im­promptu)

    • → sug­gest: SnagIt Chrome (saves to Google Drive) or We­V­ideo (share link)

  • Pro­tip: con­vert your Word­Press site into a sta­tic port­fo­lio, to keep on­line (and per­haps use?) be­yond the course. Instruc­tions here.

»Prompt:

Con­sid­er­ing the class goals (see syl­labus pages 3–6) and project/unit objec­tives, dis­cuss your course work and out­comes: both what you’ve learned and how you’ve learned, review­ing your com­po­si­tion port­fo­lio—skills, process, assess­ment, and in­sights.

These are the most impor­tant points to dis­cuss, through­out the en­tire doc­u­ment; avoid summary/descrip­tion (along with com­men­tary about assign­ments them­selves) in fa­vor of spe­cific reflec­tive points about your com­po­si­tions and learn­ing out­comes.

  • Pro­tip: re­view the course goals and the assign­ment objec­tives first; good to ref­er­ence these specif­i­cally.
    For in­stance, you could arrange the dis­cus­sion top­i­cally by skills/outcomes, rather than by each project; then dis­cuss spe­cific work to illus­trate. Link to projects and exer­cises, and per­haps in­clude screen­cap­ture im­ages for even greater effect/efficiency. (This is par­tic­u­larly impor­tant if cre­at­ing a web port­fo­lio)
     
    Or, if review­ing your port­fo­lio in se­quence, try rec­og­niz­ing and artic­u­lat­ing as a pro­gres­sion: explor­ing, inquir­ing, acquir­ing, com­pos­ing sim­i­lar top­ics in var­i­ous ar­eas and rhetor­i­cal sit­u­a­tions (e.g. audi­ence and pur­pose, quite dis­tinct in all 3 units). Avoid sum­ma­riz­ing the semes­ter by project sim­ply; this ap­proach would not be a “port­fo­lio reflec­tion,” think­ing back on all your skills and out­comes.
     
  • Al­though partly “self-assessment,” this is not the occa­sion to discuss/dispute/defend assign­ment assess­ments (con­tact GH di­rectly); in­stead, the en­tire reflec­tion should be pos­i­tive. Dis­cuss what and how you’ve learned; what and how you’ve com­posed (all projects & exer­cises); your spe­cific skills (both refined/improved and newly acquired/developed), com­pos­ing strategies/process, and outcomes—especially look­ing ahead.
    Be sure to note at least one point about this, prospec­tive “take-away” and fu­ture use/application/benefits (a good con­clud­ing point, sen­tence or two).
     
  • Note: If you have re­vised a project, impor­tant to ref­er­ence your revi­sion memo and the addi­tional outcomes/benefits of that process. (While you can in­clude the memo dis­cus­sion, you might pre­fer post­ing that sep­a­rately.)

The main goal of the Port­fo­lio Reflec­tion is new in­sights and self-awareness, less about content/material and more about your skills of crit­i­cal think­ing, rhetoric, and com­po­si­tion. More per­sonal reflec­tion than “memo to instruc­tor” —this is gen­er­ated by con­sid­er­ing thought­fully and dis­cussing specif­i­cally your work this term (much like the “Screen Self Por­trait” function/benefit, a com­pos­ite im­age to think with).
The para­me­ters are fairly open in this re­gard, with the main caveats be­ing not to summarize/describe the se­quence of work (redun­dant; maybe review/list first be­fore writ­ing); nor to dis­cuss content/topics exclu­sively or to a great ex­tent (points about this can be men­tioned in con­text, but should not be main fo­cus); nor to com­ment upon class com­po­nents (per­sonal per­cep­tions, opin­ions, etc.) in unpro­duc­tive way. 

  • These caveats are espe­cially impor­tant for the screen­cast op­tion: please pre­pare ideas (lists, out­comes, exam­ples, in­sights) prior to record­ing, to dis­cuss and show work effi­ciently (rather than im­promptu com­men­tary)

Over­all, the reflec­tion should be a pro­duc­tive re­view and dis­cus­sion for you per­son­ally, as a con­clu­sion to class: look­ing back on your learn­ing and com­po­si­tion out­comes, espe­cially for fu­ture rhetoric and writ­ing (whether di­rect appli­ca­tion or indirect/subtle ben­e­fit).

»Cri­te­ria (from syl­labus):

Credit is as­signed for (1) sub­mit­ting on-time & includ­ing all re­quired el­e­ments;
(2) demon­strat­ing atten­tion to class top­ics, con­tent knowl­edge, and crit­i­cal think­ing, par­tic­u­larly by describ­ing in­sights and con­nec­tions;
(3) pro­vid­ing thought­ful and rel­e­vant re­sponses to prompts, through spe­cial­ized dis­course;
(4) with spe­cific exam­ples from per­sonal knowl­edge and/or respec­tive read­ings,
(5) while extend­ing rhetor­i­cal knowl­edge and mas­tery of writ­ing con­ven­tions, prac­tic­ing effi­cient prose (i.e. min­i­miz­ing /avoiding sum­mary, rep­e­ti­tion, digres­sion, and unnec­es­sary dis­cus­sion).



» See In­struc­tions for Model (Page on your Site) + Word­Press Re­for­mat