Portfolios in the Writing Classroom: An Introduction" - Book Review

1. Portfolios in the Writing Classroom: An IntroductionEdited by: Kathleen Blake Yancey A Book Review By: Kelly Kennedy

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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!

10. Works Cited • Florida State University (FSU). “Kathleen Blake Yancey.” The English Department at Florida State University. 2009. Web. Google. 10 Apr. 2011. • Yancey, Kathleen Blake. Ed. Portfolios in the Writing Classroom: An Introduction. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1992. Print.