Portfolios in the Writing Classroom: An Introduction Edited by: Kathleen Blake Yancey A Book Review By: Kelly Kennedy

Dr. Kathleen Blake Yancey  Professor of English and Director of the graduate program in Rhetoric and Composition at Florida State University.  Main research focus: composition studies and writing assessment, especially the use of print and electronic portfolios.

Portfolios in the Writing Classroom  A compilation of essays from teachers and professors who currently use portfolios in their classrooms.  Underlying theoretical foundation of portfolio use is concentration on the writing process as opposed to the final product.

Awesome Things I Learned About Portfolios:  Portfolios provide enhancement of performance through evaluative feedback and reflection.  The portfolio process seeks to include and to validate the writing processes used to create it without neglecting the final product.  Students are able to review their work and comment on the process they used to create it.  With increased autonomy, students are able to discover their own power over their own writing.

Awesomeness Continued  Portfolios allow teachers and students to become partners in the process of learning.  Portfolios allow for student self-assessment.  Students’ development of ownership over each piece of writing.  The organization of the portfolios not only helps student find their work, but it also helps them define their work.  Portfolios allow for students to see teachers as collaborators in their learning, as opposed to judges of their weaknesses.

Parts to Whole  Each individual essay is important to understand every option portfolios provide.  As a whole, the collection of essays provides educators interested in using portfolios a distinguished group of various perspectives on the subject.

Significant Ideas  Portfolios are a grass-roots phenomenon, invented by teachers and controlled by teachers!  Two types of portfolios: a working portfolio for works in progress and a completed or final portfolio for evaluation at the end of the semester and for future teachers to use in their assessment of the student’s writing ability.

Recommendation Station  I highly recommend this text if anyone is interested in incorporating portfolios into their curriculum.  Yancey also provides an annotated bibliography and a detailed list of the book’s contributors at the end of the text.  Both lists are helpful when prospective portfolio teachers are trying to conduct more research about portfolios before using them in the classroom for the first time.

Portfolios and Me  Currently, I keep a sort of final product portfolio of each student’s work in my office.  While I may refer back to these to assess student improvement, they do not assist my students at all.  Because English 1301 is highly focused on the writing process, it is the perfect place for the use of working portfolios!

Works Cited  Florida State University (FSU). “Kathleen Blake Yancey.” The English Department at Florida State University Web. Google. 10 Apr  Yancey, Kathleen Blake. Ed. Portfolios in the Writing Classroom: An Introduction. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, Print.