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Senior Portfolio for Secondary Certification Students

Angelo State University

Department of English

Senior Portfolio for Secondary Certification Students

General Description of the Senior Portfolio

The Department of English has adopted a portfolio requirement for its upper division students pursuing secondary certification in English. The portfolio provides a tool to measure our joint successes. You will be better able to judge how well you have met the goals of the department, and the faculty will be better able to make decisions on the curriculum based on the information the portfolios provide.

The benefits of the portfolio project are many. It will clearly show your own growth as a developing secondary English teacher by keeping your work in one place as you progress through your upper division courses. It will help build a strong relationship between students and faculty and ensure timely progress toward completion of your degree. It will provide you with a collection of your best work in a format that you may be able to adapt as part of a job search.

The Portfolio Development Process and Deadlines

The portfolio will be a selection of your writing produced in your upper division coursework and a single piece of writing created specifically for the portfolio. You may begin selecting the portfolio's contents during the semester in which you are enrolled in English 2329 or the first semester of your junior year. After compiling your work in conference with your instructors, you may submit individual portfolio items any time before the appropriate deadline.

If you are participating in the December graduation ceremony, the completed portfolio must be submitted by 15 November.

If you are participating in the May graduation ceremony, the completed portfolio must be submitted by 15 April.

Guiding Principles

The portfolio requirement is based on the following general principles:

• Portfolios address the goals of the department. Students select materials that show they have accomplished these goals.
• Portfolios rely upon student initiative and responsibility. In consultation with instructors, students select and assemble the portfolio's contents.
• Portfolios are flexible. They must meet certain requirements, but they are designed so that students can address the goals in a variety of ways.

English Department Goals

As a graduate of the Angelo State University secondary certification in English program, you should:

1. know how to analyze literary texts;
2. know how to produce rhetorically, stylistically, grammatically, mechanically, and conventionally effective writing;
3. be able to demonstrate how your ASU course of study in English provided the fundamental content knowledge necessary for an English major seeking secondary certification.

Submission Requirements

You must submit materials for the portfolio in MS WORD (2003) files saved on a 3.5 disk or jump drive. A coversheet (see the attached form) accompanying the disk should contain:

• your name;
• the title(s) of the submission(s);
• the category(ies) of the submission(s);
• the name(s) and number(s) of the courses in which the submission(s) was (were) written;
• the name(s) of the instructor(s) of the course(s).

The disk and coversheet should be turned in to the Department Secretary.

NOTE: YOUR NAME, A FACULTY MEMBER'S NAME, OR A COURSE NAME SHOULD NOT APPEAR IN THE TABLE OF CONTENTS OR IN ANY PORTFOLIO ITEMS EXCEPT FOR THE COVERSHEET.

NOTE: DISKS OR JUMP DRIVES CONTAINING SUBMITTED PORTFOLIO MATERIALS BECOME THE PROPERTY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AT THE TIME OF SUBMISSION. DISKS OR JUMP DRIVES WILL NOT BE RETURNED TO STUDENTS.

 

Introductory Material

 The introductory material will include a table of contents for the portfolio.

The Body of the Portfolio

The body of the portfolio must include:

1. a Table of Contents (providing titles and submission categories and saved in a separate, clearly titled file);
2. three submissions from Category One;
3. two submissions from Category Two;
4. one submission from Category Three.

The categories for submission are:

1. Responding to Literature: three papers written in advanced English classes. (Papers written in English 2329, Introduction to Literary Studies, may be included.) The submissions must be taken from three of the following areas: American literature, British literature, World literature, or Young Adult literature. Within the papers, you must apply a variety of literary concepts, terminology, and theories in your analyses of literary texts of varying complexity and representative of a variety of genres, cultures, genders, and races from American, British, and World literatures;

2. Writing Competency: two papers (different from those papers submitted for Category 1) analyzing literary and/or nonliterary texts from any advanced English course. Within the papers you must demonstrate your ability to choose and assess audience and purpose-appropriate organizations and styles, to demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of the grammar of Standard Written English, and to assess the effectiveness of your products;

3. Reflection: carefully think about how your ASU course of study in English provided the fundamental content knowledge necessary for an English major seeking secondary certification. Your discussion of the course of study in this reflective essay must include activities developed during student teaching and activities from your coursework that are adaptable to the secondary classroom. These activities should serve as examples for the statements you make about how the course of study and your student teaching prepared you for the secondary classroom and help you demonstrate four of the following six abilities:

• your ability to provide students with activities that integrate writing, speaking, and observing;
• your ability to help students create and critique a variety of written and visual texts to better understand language structure (e.g. sentence structure, grammar) and conventions (e.g. elements of style and form);
• your ability to choose appropriate critical reading strategies and integrate those strategies into students' activities;
• your ability to help students use a wide variety of prewriting, writing, and rewriting strategies;
• your ability to incorporate technology and media (e.g. newspaper, film, audio recordings) into classroom activities;
• your ability to help students use prior knowledge to discover meaning in and create meaning from texts.

Instructors' Roles in the Portfolio Development Process

While selecting and submitting the portfolio's contents are your responsibility, your instructors can be sources of clarification during the process. Instructors expect to see student progress during each academic term and can therefore help assemble the portfolio's contents.

Confidentiality

Once submitted to the Department of English, the portfolio and its contents become the property of the Department of English and will not be distributed beyond the faculty assessing departmental effectiveness. Further, the portfolio and its contents will not be returned to students and will remain in locked files.

 

Cover Sheet

Senior Portfolio for Secondary Certification Students

Department of English

Angelo State University

 

 

Your Name:

Please fill in the table's columns with the appropriate information :

1. your submission's title

2. the course number (e.g., 3331, 3332, etc.) in which the submission was written;

3. the last name of the instructor of the course;

4. the category number (1, 2, 3) of the submission.

 

Submission Title	Course Number	Instructor	Category (1, 2, 3)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.