Topic: Portfolios.

10-second review: Defines portfolios and tells how a writing class that featured portfolios was organized.

Title: “The Effects of Portfolio-based Instruction on Composition Students’ Final Examination Scores, Course Grades and Attitudes Toward Writing.” NW Baker. Research in the Teaching of English (May 1993), 155-174.

Quote: “Portfolios are a collection of student writing compiled over a period of time; represents a range of the students’ writing ability in a variety of genres.”

Quote: Structure of the portfolio-based course. “Instructors followed the course syllabus and required 6 – 8 essays and a research project. However, instead of viewing each assignment as a discrete unit to be completed, revised and graded within a stipulated time frame, instructors provided feedback on the students’ drafts throughout the semester but did not attach grades to any papers. During the semester, these teachers encouraged students to take advantage of the feedback they received from their peers in class and from their instructors’ written comments and to use this information to continue revising papers written throughout the sixteen weeks of the course. Students in each portfolio-based section write a variety of papers, an in-class impromptu essay, a research paper, and essays….”

The portfolios were then graded as a whole on a pass/fail basis.

Comment: The “researcher” obviously likes the portfolio approach and knows a great deal about it. She was disappointed that scores on a writing attitude inventory before and at the end of the course did not significantly improve. RayS.