Food for Thought '09: Instructions for Preparing your Final Portfolio

In this portfolio, due by 12:30 on Friday, December 18th, we are asking you to collect and reflect on the written work you have done for this course. This portfolio project invites you to chronicle what has happened in your evolution both as a writer and a speaker in class, and to contribute to and assist us with the evaluation of your work. So--

* Gather together everything you’ve written for this class: copies of what you’ve posted on the course website, all your paper drafts, as well as all the responses from us. To print off all your forum comments, log in; type /exchange/mycomments; select "printer-friendly version" @ the top of the page, and print. Then arrange all this material in your folder, chronologically, back to front.

* You are required to revise one of the papers. Be willing, in this process, to engage in major re-thinkings of what you have done already (although you may also find it satisfying to edit merely for stylistics and technicalities—and so are more than welcome to submit a clean and corrected copy as finale for a sequence of drafts.)

* We also encourage you to post one of your papers on our course website, as your public finale to the course. To do so, SAVE YOUR PAPER AS TEXT ONLY. Then log in to exchange, go to your blog, click on "post new blog entry," and paste in your paper. It's important that you tag it as "Student Webpaper/Food for Thought," so it will appear on our class's website; you are also welcome to tag it with any other topics (you can choose your own) that seem relevant .

* Prepare a report summing up what you've learned in this course. This can take one of various forms: It might be the script of your final performance, an account of what you were doing in that performance, or of what happened during it. It could be some other sort of account of what you have been learning in the course.

* Review all you’ve gathered together in the portfolio; ruminate for a while on what you’re seeing as you do so. Then write a short (2-3 pp.) essay tracing where you were when we began this process, where you are now, and what’s been happening in between. Be specific and descriptive, but also evaluative: 

**Review your participation in our group work: how present-and-contributing have you been in our discussions, both large and small, what role have you assumed in our group dynamics, both in-class and on-line? How and what have you contributed to the learning of others? 

**Review also your written work: how much effort have you put into the web postings and each of your essays. What can you say about the quality of the final products? What have you learned about your writing and thinking processes in this class? Where have you "moved"?

*Complete the checklist and place it in the front of your portfolio

In our response to your portfolio, we’ll be giving you a grade not just for the quality of your written work, but also for class participation and process. Your self-evaluation will assist us with our own, as we reflect on your engagement in the course.

We very much look forward to seeing what you come up with, as well as what you have to say about it.

Thanks for *choosing* to join in the exploratory journey we've taken together this semester.
We've both enjoyed it very much--
Peter and Anne