E-Portfolio:

"An Introduction

to Me,

College Writer"

An Electronic Magazine

You can be very proud of yourself, having nearly completed a long, long semester of English at the college level. Many of you have taken on the challenges with amazing energy, courage, and enthusiasm, and these are some of the most important ingredients for success in college. All of you have made significant improvement. For your final project, you will show just how much you have developed this term by effectively introducing yourself as a college student and writer with an electronic portfolio.

What to Do
Use Google Pagecreator or (after discussing it with me) another means to create a website that will showcase you and your work. I leave it up to you how you’d like to this to look, but remember what your purpose is, who your audience is, and the situation in which you are representing yourself.  Don't forget that your writing must stand up for you when you're not around!

The portfolio MUST include the following:

• A homepage: This should: a) make some kind of visual argument about you as a college student, b) include a brief (3-10 lines) passage that teases the audience to read the contents of your portfolio, c) provide an overview of its content, and d) provide some sense of the author (you). Use images (either of yourself or anything you deem relevant to your project) or design elements (you have many templates to choose from). This page will also display links to each of the essays in your portfolio as well as to any additional pages you may decide to add.
  
• Your reflective essay, published on its own page. (See separate handout.)
• At least two (2) fully revised and edited essays written for this course, also on their own pages. (Use MLA style correctly.)

Note that the essays you include in your portfolio must be ready for publication, meeting the goals in the box below to the best of your ability. (See “Extra Credit” below for advice on submitting more or all of your essays.)

Your grade on the portfolio will be based on my assessment of the reflective essay, the strength and thoroughness of your revisions, and how effectively the look and feel of the website conveys the identity you choose to project.

More about the Flavor of Your Site
When you are designing this site, think MySpace but with IMPORTANT differences in your intended audience and purpose. For this portfolio, you aren’t primarily appealing to your peers to prove how cool you are (although this CAN be part of it); instead, you want the site to serve to extend the central argument of your reflective essay: that you have grown as a writer and that you ARE a college writer and a college student. The elements you include should express both your uniqueness and your personal authority.

You MAY consider including:

• a link to a brief bio
• a link to a resume
• links to your writing in other courses
• a link to video of you or that represents some aspect of you that serves to establish your authority with your audience.

Extra Credit
Highly motivated students may want to submit more than just two FULLY REVISED and EDITED essays written in class for extra credit. I strongly encourage you to revise all of your work, to make it a good as you can make it. With the exception of the 5th Essay, which I encourage you to post anyway, please don’t include essays that have NOT undergone a thorough revision process beyond your initial submission of them. If the work is there, I will be generous with extra credit.

Submitting the E-portfolio
Please submit your e-portfolio by e-mailing the link to me at timmax@gmail.com by the final exam date.  Please be sure to have given me the form stating whether you will allow me to share your site as an example with other students and/or teachers. In the next months, I will be showing other teachers how to use this technology in their classrooms, so your participation will be highly appreciated.