E-portfolio in Composition I

Contributed by Lisa Crizer, Instructor of English

When creating my syllabus, I always struggle with what to do after Thanksgiving. Students and instructors come back stuffed, unfocused, and usually spend the final two weeks counting down the minutes until winter break. This semester, I decided to try out an e-portfolio.

I’ve assigned portfolios in the past, usually in composition I, and I use them as an opportunity for students to look back on how far they’ve come in one semester. We gather all of our work together in one place and take a look back at the process for each essay: What did the pre-writing look like? The first draft? Now, compare that to the edited final draft you submitted. Can you see the difference?

Normally, I collect the hard copies of the essays, along with any reflection pieces, in a pocket folder. If you stop by my office, you’ll see evidence of this on my overcrowded shelves.



Exhibit A

This semester, however, I decided to try something different. Since we’ve been talking about e-portfolios as a possible graduation requirement and since I was able to pull one off when I created my tenure portfolio last year, I figured my students could give it a go.   

We used Google Sites and the students did really well with the assignment. I created a template for them, so that instead of focusing all their energy on designing the e-portfolio, they could spend their time reflecting on their writing. Even with the template, they were still able to make the portfolio look how they wanted it to look, which they really enjoyed. Here’s a link to the template I created for them.

I am very happy with how this went, and I will definitely do it again in the future. My students have an e-portfolio that they can refer back to, and I can begin to reclaim my shelves. Everybody wins!