english assignment portfolio

The Portfolio – Culminating Activity (Your Final)

Portfolio assignment.

EN 111 Final Portfolio

The portfolio is a selection of work that demonstrates your writing abilities and knowledge about writing and critical thinking at the close of EN 111. For the purposes of this class, this assignment will be considered the final.

What goes in the Portfolio?

• Title page (title + optional picture and/or quote)
• Reflective Essay (~2 pages)
• A final (2nd) draft copy of all essays completed during the semester (Experience, Compare/Contrast, Issues) and the prior drafts for all essays.
• Selected Artifacts (2-3)

You should title the portfolio in a way that captures your sense of yourself as a writer and critical thinker at this point in your educational journey. You can include a picture and/or quote on the title page as well. A quote can come from anywhere (any text, movie, lyrics, etc.) but should illustrate your perspective about writing and/or critical thinking. You will discuss the significance of your title (picture and quote too if you included them) in your Reflective Essay.

Reflective Essay for Portfolio

The Reflective Essay is a self-assessment that examines the entire body of your work (all of your writing up to this point) rather than a single subject and/or inquiry thread. Your task is to examine, or reflect on , your own writing and situate your observations and interpretations within the context of our discussions about writing and critical thinking skills. The portfolio, in essence, is a presentation—a somewhat persuasive demonstration illustrating how you approached writing and critical thinking before EN 111, and how you see yourself, as a writer and thinker, now, in relation to these same abilities/skills at the close of the course.

What goes in the Reflective Essay?

This essay should be a fairly polished and focused piece of writing that supports its claims and reflections with specific evidence (i.e. cite yourself). It will run ~2 pages in length. All reflective essays should take into account the following, but not necessarily in the order presented here:

• The significance of your title (and picture and quote, if included).
• What you now understand about effective writing and how it is achieved and what the portfolio reveals about your writing and your abilities to think on paper. (Refer to your included essays and selected artifacts).
• What you now understand about writing and critical inquiry that this portfolio might not reveal. (You may understand more than your portfolio reveals).
• What the portfolio reveals about you as a writer and critical thinker at this point in your educational journey (Refer to your included essays and selected artifacts).
• What challenges you continue to face as writer and critical thinker. (What is hard for you? In what areas have you gotten stronger and more confident? What immediate goals have you set for yourself as you continue to develop as a writer and critical thinker?)
• (Optional) Discuss, document, and evaluate the extent to which you were actively engaged in this class (i.e. determine how much time/effort you put into this course and whether your writing reflects that same time/effort).

You are to include final (2nd) draft copies (at minimum) of all the essays you have written in this course. In including your essays, you will be expected to discuss why you have included them in your Reflective Essay, and explain specifically what they illustrate about you as a writer and critical thinker. As such, I recommend that you discuss how the essays reveal your analytical skills at work—your abilities to develop, examine, and communicate an informed perspective.

Selected Artifacts

I am asking you to include 2-3 artifacts from the course (or outside of EN 111) that are significant to, and reflective of, you in terms of yourself as a writer and critical thinker. You may select anything from your Informal Writing Collection (freewrites, peer exchanges, etc.), your formal writing (part of your essay(s), or parts of them as a sequence from the first draft to the final draft stage) or other texts (a particular paper or assignment from another class you found pertinent to your overall growth).

How Do I Submit It?

You should submit the portfolio, in the dropbox on the preceding page,  as a Word document or a PDF so that I may open it in Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• Portfolio Assignment. Authored by : Jason Brown. Provided by : Herkimer College. Project : AtD OER Course. License : CC BY: Attribution

How to Create a Writing Portfolio (With Examples)

Want to create a writing portfolio that'll stand out to readers and potential clients? Here's how to do it and some examples to make it easy for you.

As a freelance writer, it's beneficial to have a portfolio of your work, so potential clients can review your work and learn about your area of expertise. Before starting to work on your portfolio, you should consider the writing you want to do.

Whether you're a copywriter, a ghostwriter, writing literature, or a journalist, that should be clear when people view your portfolio. One of the first things to consider when creating your portfolio is your niche, and determining your niche can help you select your articles and the layout.

6 Steps to Creating Your Writing Portfolio

Here are the six steps to creating a writing portfolio that will help you get noticed by readers and potential clients:

1. Choose a Portfolio Host

In today's virtual world, having an online portfolio is a must for most creatives. You get to decide whether you want to host your portfolio on your website or prefer to have another company host it.

You can create your portfolio using a platform like Wix, Weebly, or WordPress. If you'd rather have your portfolio hosted by a site specializing in online portfolios, you can choose from sites such as Clippings, WriterFolio, or JournoPortfolio. You might be interested in these free platforms to showcase your freelance writing portfolio .

2. Determine Your Niche

If you're struggling with selecting the type of writing you want to focus on, it may be a good idea to review your previous work and see which ones had the most impact, response, and reach. If you want to focus on ghostwriting, you may want to clarify what type of content you can write. This can range from real estate to gardening, holistic medicine, or another industry in which you have writing experience.

As a copywriter, do you enjoy creating sales pages and other marketing copy, like landing pages, newsletters, and email sequences? What kind of literature do you write if you're a literary writer? You can focus on romance, fantasy, horror, or any other genre. What type of news do you write about if you're a journalist? Do you write about current events, celebrity gossip, or financial or political news? The possibilities are endless.

3. Create Your Author Bio

Your author bio aims to introduce yourself to potential clients who enjoy your work and want to learn more about you. The content you include in your bio should match the formatting and design of the website. The elements you should consider including are:

• Where you're from originally.
• Where you call home currently.
• Your academic writing credentials, if applicable.
• Your notable publications.
• Any accolades and awards you've won.
• The subjects or themes you cover.

You can include your social media links if you're comfortable, and they highlight more of your written work. If you're creating your site for the portfolio, you can choose to include the bio on an about page or have it as your homepage.

You may consider adding a photograph of you since it can increase the chances of people reaching out to you. You may be interested in learning tips on how to write an about me page in your online portfolio .

4. Select Your Best Work

Once you've decided on the niche you want to focus on, you can review your completed work and choose the best content that fits that specialization. You can include work past clients have succeeded with and their feedback.

Your potential clients want confirmation that you can produce well-written content about the content you're stating is your specialization. It may be helpful to verify the terms of the work you've written to determine whether you can post the entire content as a part of your portfolio or if you'll have to provide links.

If you provide links, specify the publication and when it was published. You might be interested in learning how Google Docs can help organize your writing portfolio for the next step.

5. Organize Your Work Into Segments

You can divide the work you want to include in your portfolio by niche, or the type of article, using clear descriptions. Categorizing your work makes it easier for potential clients to find samples of the work they're looking to hire you for when you separate them by niche or type. Examples of categories include landing page copy, white papers, and blog posts, to name a few.

Your descriptions for your categories should be brief. If the content you want to share was done as a ghostwriter and didn't include your byline, you should include the term ghostwriter in the work description to clarify it.

6. Ensure Your Contact Information Is Easy to Find

Your online portfolio must make it easy for potential customers to connect with you. Whether they want to express appreciation for an article you wrote or wish to discuss a business opportunity with you, finding your number or an email address shouldn't be challenging.

Engaging with as many people as possible is an excellent way to expand your online profile. You can use a contact form on your website, or you can provide your email address.

The key is to ensure that the information is visible and easy to access, whether they're using their phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer. If you decide to share an email address, you may want to create a new account, since having an email published publicly can leave you vulnerable to excessive amounts of spam.

Writing Portfolio Examples

Before you begin creating your portfolio, reviewing what some writers have created for themselves may be helpful. You may also want to check out the blogs every freelance writer should read to get some inspiration, regardless of how long you've been writing. Here are some examples of writer portfolios with some commentary on their design:

1. Elna Cain

Elna's portfolio tells you that she's the writer you're looking for to meet your business needs. She lists publications where readers can find her work and shares testimonials from past clients.

She has numerous ways to connect with her, whether you want to discuss business opportunities or follow her online. She also has a link to her blog, so you can stay current on her work.

2. Tyler Koenig

Tyler uses his website to add value with an email list, courses, webinars, and tips on his blog. He has paid and free resources, highlighting his expertise to potential clients. The site is well-designed and easy to navigate.

3. Jennifer Fernandez

Jennifer uses a grid-based theme to display links to her writing samples, using a title and a thumbnail photo for each. She organized her writing samples in sections based on her lifestyle, design, and travel content niche. Jennifer showcases the type of writing she has experience in and makes browsing easy.

Get Started With Your Creative Writing Portfolio

Before you make your portfolio live, you may want to review it and have friends or colleagues look at it. Sometimes we can be so close to our project that we miss little things. The last thing you want is to publish a writer's portfolio with spelling or grammar mistakes.

If you're looking for work, you want to get as many eyes as possible on it to increase your chances of getting hired. You might be interested in learning how to source clients as a freelance writer now that you have a portfolio to share.

9 mins read

How To Create A Writing Portfolio: Portfolio Writing Guide + Writing Portfolio Examples

Create an industry-best writing portfolio in 7 easy steps. Don't forget to check out the examples.

Shreya Bose

Written by Shreya Bose , edited by Protim Bhaumik , reviewed by Eric Hauch .

11. Jan 2024 , updated 12. Jan 2024

An online writing portfolio is more than a writing sample or two or five put together. I've been freelancing as a writer for close to a decade, and creating & updating a freelance writing portfolio involves more nuance than I expected (at least the first time).

Every time I sent my portfolio to a potential client, I was aware of the fact that it directly reflected on me as a content writer and freelance writer. Clients didn't just want to see my best writing; they wanted to see proof of consistent quality and updated publications and browse through a navigable, searchable portfolio site..

I lost quite a few opportunities because I didn't have a comprehensive and adequately professional writer portfolio. To ensure that you don't have to deal with the same ordeal, here is a 101-style guide to creating a professional writing portfolio (whether you are a freelancer or not).

I'll also list out the best writing portfolio examples you can use as benchmarks for creating your own writing portfolio site. Additionally, I'll introduce a tool that will build your portfolio for you — it will automatically find and identify all your bylined articles and pieces from any website you specify. More on that later.

What is a writing portfolio?

A writing portfolio is a collection of work samples meant to convey the depth and range of your skills and experience. The writing portfolio website makes the case for its owner's employability. It should display every type of writing (and ideally, every published piece) you've ever composed.

Along with examples of great writing, your writer's portfolio should also include information about your academic background, achievements, interests, and contact information. While this sounds simple, it's not always easy to put together a portfolio that looks good, is easy to scroll through, and reliably exhibits your writing abilities.

Be it a creative writing portfolio or a regular online portfolio, it should make a point about the value of your writing skills. It’s also an absolute necessity in the modern job market. If you don't have a portfolio, start creating one now.

What do you want to include in your portfolio?

A succinct but comprehensive introduction.

The best portfolio doesn't have to wax eloquent about your skills. Keep the introduction short unless you've won multiple awards or have a long list of very significant accolades. Briefly mention what you do, who you've worked with, and any outstanding achievements (awards, industry milestones, etc).

Use the introduction as a context-setter. It should naturally lead the reader to dive into the chosen samples for your portfolio.

Don't forget to add your contact information, such as email and social media accounts.

ALL your work in ALL formats (text, audio, video)

Whether you're creating a journalism portfolio or a writer website for more domain-based content — sales/marketing/tech, etc — you should consider including all the work you've ever done. This goes against classical wisdom around portfolios — only include work that reveals the best of your writing career — but modern employers want quality and quantity.

Potential clients want to see a website portfolio that communicates the fact that you will produce great content consistently. No one wants to hire a one-hit wonder. Your freelance portfolio should display this, and the best way to do so is to import ALL (or most) of your work in ALL formats — and display them accordingly on your portfolio.

Moreover, if you've produced content across different formats (text, audio, video), include all of it in your own portfolio.

It indicates that you're comfortable working with multiple content avenues and makes you an asset for companies looking to expand their presence on numerous social channels.

Real-world results

When you showcase your writing, don't forget to establish that your work is already valued. As far as possible, mention real-world results to build prospective clients' faith in your abilities.

Reach out to previous clients to get some hard numbers on the impact of your writing. Let's say you wrote 10 articles for a client, and their publication led to a 38% increase in web traffic over one quarter. This is the kind of fact that should be mentioned in your portfolio.

How to create a writing portfolio website in literal minutes

When I was creating my freelance writing portfolio, I used the free trials of quite a few tools — Squarespace, Linktree, Wix, and the like. But I decided to choose and stick with Authory, and the tutorial below will amply showcase why.

Authory is a dedicated portfolio builder that literally does over half the work: finding all bylined content you’ve ever published, importing it automatically, saving it permanently (again, automatically), and letting you organize your content items into different collections (like a folder that can be sent via a URL to other people).

Step 1: Sign up for Authory (for free)

• Create an account on Authory for free using this signup link .

Step 2: Import your bylined content

• Click on "Add Collection" on your dashboard. Then click "Create New."

• Name your Collection. I'm calling it "Long Form Content." The Collection will be automatically added to your portfolio.

• Click "Add Content."

• Click "Import or upload new content."

Choose "Articles."

• Choose the relevant option. I'll go with the first one — importing all bylined articles from a specific website. ( Note : this works for just one writing sample as well — so if you have just one article on the site, that’s fine.)

• Paste the URL of the website with your published pieces. I'm choosing the Authory blog. Click "Continue.”

In about 48 hours (usually less), all your content will automatically appear in the Collection you just created.

5 best writing portfolio examples

Jake leonard.

Jake Leonard is currently the editor-in-chief of Heartland Newsfeed. He is also a contributing writer to My Sports Vote, Ambush Sports, Midwest Sports Network, and Independent Political Report. He has been a former contributing writer for Overtime Heroics. He has also held several gigs in terrestrial radio and has been a syndication coordinator with a talk radio network for podcasts and internet radio.

Jake has been a freelance journalist since 2009, starting with Bleacher Report.

Lucy Shrimpton

The writings of Lucy Shrimpton appear frequently in The Independent, Waitrose Weekend, and France Magazine. She has also written for Times Travel, Coast Magazine, Maverick, Cornwall Life Magazine, LivingEtc, and more.

Some of her great writing also exists on Hauts-de-France Tourisme and Calvados Tourisme. She also sub-edits and proofreads Juno Magazine, exploring well-being, community, and parenting.

Lucy's interests and specializations include history, the arts, museums, charities, books, and human-centered storytelling

Mary Ann Gwinn

Mary Ann Gwinn is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and book reviewer for the Los Angeles Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Seattle Times, Kirkus Reviews, and other publications. She is also a Pulitzer jurist.

Muriel Vega

Muriel Vega writes about tech, art, travel, food & more, and her design reflects this diversity. The playful whimsy and capricious coloring over a white background makes you itch to click on the icons.

She has bylines at Delta Sky Magazine, DWELL, Apartment Therapy, Eater, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Post, Atlanta Magazine, The Bitter Southerner, Outside Magazine, and others.

Scott Broker

Scott Broker is an LA-based writer. He is a Lambda Literary fellow and Tin House scholar and has been a finalist for the Iowa Review Prize in Fiction and the New England Review's Emerging Writer Award. He has also been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes.

His work has appeared in Ecotone, New England Review, Guernica, Fence, the Idaho Review, the Cincinnati Review, Catapult, Joyland, and the Adroit Journal.

Scott was also awarded the Helen Earnhart Harley Creative Writing Fellowship Award during his MFA at Ohio State University.

Try Authory to create your writer portfolio

When you sign up for an Authory account (for free), you get the following:

A self-updating portfolio (no need to keep adding new work manually)

Authory will AUTOMATICALLY import a copy of every bylined piece from every site into its own database. You don't have to track down links to your published work (especially older pieces). As long as you remember the URL of the site where your work exists, Authory will collate all your content for you in one dashboard.

Authory can import content from behind most soft paywalls (as long as it is a bylined piece) and some hard paywalls. However, it cannot be used to import copies of articles, podcasts, and videos you haven’t created or featured in.

Automated backups (never lose your content, ever)

All the content that Authory imports from different sources is saved permanently. Even if the original website where it's published goes defunct for any reason, you'll always have a copy safely stored on Authory's server. All backups are in the original format — text and/or media. No screenshots.

Continued importing of past and future content (less effort for a 100% updated portfolio)

Once you enter a source, Authory won't just import your existing publications. Anything you publish on the same site (after you've fed its URL into Authory) in the future will also be imported automatically. In other words, Authory will import your past and future content.

Authory also sends email notifications for every new piece it imports, so you'll always know if something you submitted has been published.

Apart from these, you also get a slew of miscellaneous but necessary features:

• Ability to search through both your portfolio and your content database to find articles/audio/videos based on keywords . Prospective employers and hiring managers can use this to look for topics on your portfolio, and you can use it to find specific pieces within your Authory content bank.
• Ability to create a custom domain with a click.
• Get a custom domain and personalize your online writing portfolio even further.
• Multiple, low-effort options for customization to make your portfolio visually appealing and easy to navigate.
• In-built analytics that provide real numbers on content performance (engagement, readership) across the web and popular social media sites every 30 days .

Authory has been chosen by quite a few well-known names in my domain, people who could have picked any tool in the world. There's 6-time Emmy award winner David Pogue , Steven Levy, Editor at Large, WIRED , and Brian Fung, a Technology Reporter at CNN , to name a very few.

Get started with Authory for free and see for yourself what works for you!

Seasoned writer & editor working with B2B & B2C content since 2017. Writes about music on weekends. Trying to overcome caffeine addiction.

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Learn what the top 7 Contently portfolio alternatives are and which one you should choose to build your portfolio.

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1.8 Portfolio: Tracing Writing Development

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Reflect on the development of composing processes.
• Reflect on how those composing processes affect your work.

The Portfolio: And So It Begins . . .

In simplest terms, a writing portfolio is a collection of your writing contained within a single binder or folder. This writing may have been done over a number of weeks, months, or even years. It may be organized chronologically, thematically, or according to quality. A private writing portfolio may contain writing that you wish to keep only for yourself. In this case, you decide what is in it and what it looks like. However, a writing portfolio assigned for a class will contain writing to be shared with an audience to demonstrate the growth of your writing and reasoning abilities. One kind of writing portfolio, accumulated during a college course, presents a record of your work over a semester, and your instructor may be use it to assign a grade. Another type of portfolio presents a condensed, edited story of your semester’s progress in a more narrative form.

The most common type of portfolio assigned in a writing course combines the cumulative work collected over the semester, plus a cover letter in which you explain the nature and value of these papers. Sometimes you will be asked to assign yourself a grade on the basis of your own assessment. The following suggestions may help you prepare a course portfolio:

• Make your portfolio speak for you. If your course portfolio is clean, complete, and carefully organized, that is how it will be judged. If it is unique, colorful, creative, and imaginative, that, too, is how it will be judged. Similarly, your folder will be judged more critically if it is messy, incomplete, and haphazardly put together. Before giving your portfolio to somebody else for evaluation, consider whether it reflects how you want to be presented.
• Include exactly what is asked for. If an instructor wants three finished papers and a dozen sample journal entries, that is the minimum your course portfolio should contain. Sometimes you can include more than what is asked for, but never include less.
• Add supplemental material judiciously. Course portfolios are among the most flexible means of presenting yourself. If you believe that supplemental writing will show you in a better light, include that too, but only after the required material. If you include extra material, attach a memo to explain why it is there and what you think it adds to your portfolio. Supplemental writing might include journals, letters, sketches, or diagrams that suggest other useful dimensions of your thinking.
• Include perfect final drafts. At least make them as close to perfect as you can. Show that your own standard for finished work is high. Check spelling, grammar, citation, formatting, and font sizes and types. You should go over your work carefully and be able to find the smallest errors. In addition, if you are asked for a hard copy of your portfolio, final drafts should be double-spaced and printed on only one side of high-quality paper, unless another format is requested. And, of course, your work should be carefully proofread and should follow the language and genre conventions appropriate to the task.
• Demonstrate growth. This is a tall order, but course portfolios, unlike most other assessment instruments, can show positive change. The primary value of portfolios in writing classes is that they allow you to demonstrate how a finished paper came into being. Consequently, instructors frequently ask for early drafts to be attached to final drafts of each paper, the most recent on top, so they can see how you followed revision suggestions, how much effort you invested, how many drafts you wrote, and how often you took risks and tried to improve. To build such a record of your work, make sure the date of every draft is clearly marked on each one, and keep it in a safe place (and backed up electronically).
• Demonstrate work in progress. Course portfolios allow writers to present partially finished work that suggests future directions and intentions. Both instructors and potential employers may find such preliminary drafts or outlines as valuable as some of your finished work. When you include a tentative draft, be sure to attach a memo or note explaining why you still believe it has merit and in which direction you plan to take your next revisions.
• Attach a table of contents. For portfolios containing more than three papers, attach a separate table of contents. For those containing only a few papers, embed your table of contents in the cover letter.
• Chronological order : Writing is arranged in order, beginning with the first week of class and ending with the last week, with all drafts, papers, journal entries, letters, and such fitting in place according to the date written. Only the cover letter is out of chronological order, appearing at the beginning and serving as an introduction to what follows. This method allows you to show the evolution of growth most clearly, with your latest writing (presumably the best) presented at the end.
• Reverse chronological order : The most recent writing is up front, and the earliest writing at the back. In this instance, the most recent written document—the cover letter—is in place at the beginning of the portfolio. This method features your latest (presumably the best) work up front and allows readers to trace the history of how it got there.
• Best-first order : You place your strongest writing up front and your weakest in back. Organizing a portfolio this way suggests that the work you consider strongest should count most heavily in evaluating the semester’s work.

With each completed chapter in this textbook, you will add to this portfolio. As you work through the chapters and complete the assignments, save each one on your computer or in the cloud, unless your instructor asks you to print your work and arrange it in a binder. Each assignment becomes an artifact that will form a piece of your portfolio. Depending on your preference or your instructor’s approach, you may write a little about each assignment as you add to the portfolio. As you compile your portfolio, take some time to read the assignments—drafts and finished products—carefully. Undoubtedly, you will see improvement in your writing over a short amount of time. Be sure to make note of this improvement because it will prove useful moving forward.

Reflective Task: The Freedom of Freewriting

As you begin your portfolio with the addition of your critical response, compose an accompanying freewrite , sometimes called a quick write . In this case, you will be responding to your own text—a powerful tool in your intellectual development. To begin, write quickly and without stopping about the process of composing your critical response and the finished product. See where your thoughts go, a process that often helps you clarify your own thoughts about the subject—your own text and its creation. When you freewrite, write to yourself in your own natural style, without worrying about sentence structure, grammar, spelling, or punctuation. The purpose is to help you tie together the ideas from your writing process, your assignment, and other thoughts and experiences in your mind. One future value of freewriting is that the process tends to generate questions at random, capture them, and leave the answering for a later task or assignment. Another bonus of freewriting is that you will build confidence with writing and become more disciplined when you have to write. In other words, the more you write, the more confidence you will have in your voice and your writing.

By now you may have realized that writing, whether on social media platforms or in the classroom, is a conversation. The conversation may take place with yourself (freewriting), with your instructor and classmates (assignment), or with the world (social media). You have learned how people like Selena Gomez and others use simple and effective strategies, such as vulnerability , understanding, analysis, and evaluation, to engage in such conversations. Now adopt these same processes—try them on for size, practice them, and learn to master them. As you move through the remainder of this course and text, compose with intention by keeping in mind the limits and freedoms of a particular defined rhetorical situation.

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9.1: Portfolio Assignment

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EN 111 Final Portfolio

The portfolio is a selection of work that demonstrates your writing abilities and knowledge about writing and critical thinking at the close of EN 111. For the purposes of this class, this assignment will be considered the final.

What goes in the Portfolio?

• Title page (title + optional picture and/or quote)
• Reflective Essay (~2 pages)
• A final (2nd) draft copy of all essays completed during the semester (Experience, Compare/Contrast, Issues) and the prior drafts for all essays.
• Selected Artifacts (2-3)

You should title the portfolio in a way that captures your sense of yourself as a writer and critical thinker at this point in your educational journey. You can include a picture and/or quote on the title page as well. A quote can come from anywhere (any text, movie, lyrics, etc.) but should illustrate your perspective about writing and/or critical thinking. You will discuss the significance of your title (picture and quote too if you included them) in your Reflective Essay.

Reflective Essay for Portfolio

The Reflective Essay is a self-assessment that examines the entire body of your work (all of your writing up to this point) rather than a single subject and/or inquiry thread. Your task is to examine, or reflect on , your own writing and situate your observations and interpretations within the context of our discussions about writing and critical thinking skills. The portfolio, in essence, is a presentation—a somewhat persuasive demonstration illustrating how you approached writing and critical thinking before EN 111, and how you see yourself, as a writer and thinker, now, in relation to these same abilities/skills at the close of the course.

What goes in the Reflective Essay?

This essay should be a fairly polished and focused piece of writing that supports its claims and reflections with specific evidence (i.e. cite yourself). It will run ~2 pages in length. All reflective essays should take into account the following, but not necessarily in the order presented here:

• The significance of your title (and picture and quote, if included).
• What you now understand about effective writing and how it is achieved and what the portfolio reveals about your writing and your abilities to think on paper. (Refer to your included essays and selected artifacts).
• What you now understand about writing and critical inquiry that this portfolio might not reveal. (You may understand more than your portfolio reveals).
• What the portfolio reveals about you as a writer and critical thinker at this point in your educational journey (Refer to your included essays and selected artifacts).
• What challenges you continue to face as writer and critical thinker. (What is hard for you? In what areas have you gotten stronger and more confident? What immediate goals have you set for yourself as you continue to develop as a writer and critical thinker?)
• (Optional) Discuss, document, and evaluate the extent to which you were actively engaged in this class (i.e. determine how much time/effort you put into this course and whether your writing reflects that same time/effort).

You are to include final (2nd) draft copies (at minimum) of all the essays you have written in this course. In including your essays, you will be expected to discuss why you have included them in your Reflective Essay, and explain specifically what they illustrate about you as a writer and critical thinker. As such, I recommend that you discuss how the essays reveal your analytical skills at work—your abilities to develop, examine, and communicate an informed perspective.

Selected Artifacts

I am asking you to include 2-3 artifacts from the course (or outside of EN 111) that are significant to, and reflective of, you in terms of yourself as a writer and critical thinker. You may select anything from your Informal Writing Collection (freewrites, peer exchanges, etc.), your formal writing (part of your essay(s), or parts of them as a sequence from the first draft to the final draft stage) or other texts (a particular paper or assignment from another class you found pertinent to your overall growth).

How Do I Submit It?

You should submit the portfolio, in the dropbox on the preceding page,  as a Word document or a PDF so that I may open it in Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• Portfolio Assignment. Authored by : Jason Brown. Provided by : Herkimer College. Project : AtD OER Course. License : CC BY: Attribution

13 Reflection and Portfolios

The final assignment in your English course will include a reflective essay in which you describe your growth as a writer over the course of the semester. This activity of reflecting on your growth and performance is what is called a metacognitive activity: one in which you think and write about your learning.

Writing a formal reflective essay may be a new thing for you, so this chapter will provide an overview of why we write reflections on our learning and how to approach a reflection assignment.

Student reflection about their thinking is such a crucial part of the learning process. You have come to this course with your own writing goals. Now is a good time to think back on your writing practices with reflective writing, also called metacognitive writing. Reflective writing helps you think through and develop your intentions as a writer. Leveraging reflective writing also creates learning habits that extend to any discipline of learning. It’s a set of procedures that helps you step back from the work you have done and ask a series of questions: Is this really what I wanted to do?  Is this really what I wanted to say? Is this the best way to communicate my intentions? Reflective writing helps you authenticate your intentions and start identifying places where you either hit the target or miss the mark. You may find, also, that when you communicate your struggles, you can ask others for help! Reflective writing helps you trace and articulate the patterns you have developed, and it fosters independence from relying too heavily on an instructor to tell you what you are doing.

Reflective Learning

Reflective thinking is a powerful learning tool. As we have seen throughout this course, proficient readers are reflective readers, constantly stepping back from the learning process to think about their reading. They understand that just as they need to activate prior knowledge at the beginning of a learning task and monitor their progress as they learn, they also need to make time during learning as well as at the end of learning to think about their learning process, to recognize what they have accomplished, how they have accomplished it, and set goals for future learning. This process of “thinking about thinking” is called metacognition. When we think about our thinking—articulating what we now know and how we came to know it—we close the loop in the learning process.

How do we engage in a reflection? Educator Peter Pappas modified Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning to focus on reflection:

This “taxonomy of reflection” provides a structure for metacognition.  Educator Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano has modified Pappas’s taxonomy into a pyramid and expanded upon his  reflection questions:

By making reflection a key component of our work, students realize that learning is not always about facts and details. Rather, learning is about discovery.

How is reflective writing in the academic setting different from journaling or writing in a diary?

If you write in a diary or a journal, recording your thoughts and feelings about what has happened in your life, you are certainly engaging in the act of reflection. Many of us have some experience with this type of writing. In our diaries, journals, or other informal spaces for speaking – or writing- our mind,  write to ourselves, for ourselves, in a space that will largely remain private.

Your reflection essay for college courses will contain some of those same features:

• The subject of the reflective essay is you and your experiences
• You can generally use the first person in a reflective essay

But writing academic reflections, like the one that is due for the English 100/101 portfolio assignment, is a bit different from journaling or keeping a diary:

What can be gained from metacognitive activities that ask you to reflect on your learning and your performance as a writer?

One of the major goals in any First-Year Writing class is to encourage students’ growth as writers. No one is expected to be a perfect writer at the end of the semester. Your instructor’s hope, however, is that after 16 weeks of reading, writing, and revising several major essays, you are more confident, capable, and aware of yourself as a writer than you were at the beginning of the semester. Reflecting on the process that you go through as you write – even if your writing is not perfect – can help you to identify the behaviors, strategies, and resources that have helped you to be successful or that could support your future success. In short, reflecting on how you write (or how you have written during a particular semester) can be quite powerful in helping you to identify areas where you have grown and areas where you still have room for more growth.

How can I write a reflective essay?

As with any essay, a reflective essay should come with its own assignment sheet. On that assignment sheet, you should be able to identify what the purpose of the reflective essay is and what the scope of the reflection needs to be. Some key elements of the reflective essay that the assignment sheet should answer are:

• What, exactly, the scope of the reflection is. Are you reflecting on one lesson, one assignment, or the whole semester?
• Do you have detailed guidelines, resources, or reference documents for your reflections that must be met?
• Is there a particular structure for the reflection?
• Should the reflection include any outside resources?

If you are struggling to find the answers to these questions, ask your professor!

Another wonderful resource for writing a reflective essay comes from  Writing Commons , in the article  “Writing an Academic Reflection Essay” . This article offers great information about the following:

• What it means to be “academic” or “critical” and at the same time personal and reflective
• How you can achieve focus in a reflective essay
• What “evidence” is in a reflective essay

Prior Learning

Fast and well-traveled roads may make for a quicker trip, but they also miss the nuance and beauty of the scenic route. For some, the long way around is just worth it. The adventures, mishaps, connections, and coincidences that happen along the way are a teacher like no other.

If this sounds familiar to you when you think about your journey in education, then this textbook is for you. Let’s take another look at those years of experiential learning along the scenic route: your work, travel, volunteering, community involvement, entrepreneurship, and whatever else you’ve explored while not in the traditional classroom setting.

Let’s reconsider that experience as Prior Learning, and dig in to see what you’ve learned on the way.

The portfolio is composed of an assortment of documents and artifacts demonstrating previous college-level learning.

• Examines your personal motivations and educational goals in the context of learning and how you will achieve them.
• This portion should address each course objective found on the course syllabus, and demonstrate that you have mastered the objectives. Showcase how your learning applies to the objectives for a specific course.
• You will need to supply documentation to support the narrative.
• Documentation is as individual as the learner, and it may include items such as sample work products, training certificates, workplace evaluations, letters of recommendation, and/or photographs.

The Educational Narrative is asking for a very specific thing from you so that your reviewers can understand the learning you’ve done and relate it to the course you’re challenging.

What is that thing it’s asking for?

A story . Several stories, actually.

The word Narrative means “story,” of course, so this component is asking you to tell the story of your learning. To tell that story, you’ll need to have several examples that clearly demonstrate your expertise with the course’s subject matter. And these examples need to be  specific . Here’s why:

In creative writing, teachers often say that the universe is in the specific. The more detailed the description, the better the reader can visualize the characters and scene. Take, for example, this line:

We got dressed up and went to the concert.

Who are they? What’d they wear? How old were they? What kind of concert was it? Who was playing? None of that is apparent, so every reader sees something different.

But what if that line was written like:

We teased our hair to the ceilings, doused it in White Rain, snapped on spandex and pleather. We tore out of the suburbs, left a mile-long streak of rubber on our way to go see Twisted Sister at CBGB’s.

Now can you see it? From the first description, it could’ve also easily been a black-tie evening at the Philharmonic, or a 7th Grade Band Concert, or… It’s the specifics that make the example come alive.

That’s  your task in the Educational Narrative.

Though, of course, you’ll be writing about your class experiences and not an 80s hair band (unless you are drawing connections from when you were a member of an 80s hair band…).

ATTRIBUTIONS

• Content Adapted from Excelsior Online Writing Lab (OWL). (2020).  Excelsior College. Retrieved from https://owl.excelsior.edu/ licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-4.0 International License .
• Content Adapted from Composition II. Authored by : Alexis McMillan-Clifton.  Provided by : Tacoma Community College.  Located at :  http://www.tacomacc.edu .
• Reflection.  Authored by : Daryl Smith O’Hare.  Provided by : Chadron State College.  Project : Kaleidoscope Open Course Initiative.  License :  CC BY: Attribution
• Image of woman against wall.  Authored by : VisualAge.  Located at :  https://flic.kr/p/CScnK .  License :  CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
• Content Adapted from Composition II.  Authored by : Elisabeth Ellington, Ph.D..  Provided by : Chadron State College.  Located at :  http://www.csc.edu/ .  Project : Kaleidoscope Open Course Initiative.  License :  CC BY: Attribution
• Image of Taxonomy.  Authored by : Peter Pappas.  Located at :  http://www.peterpappas.com/images/2011/08/taxonomy-of-reflection.png .  Project : Copy/Paste.  License :  CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial
• Content Adapted from   A Guide to Rhetoric, Genre, and Success in First-Year Writing  by Emilie Zickel is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License ,
• Image of pyramid.  Authored by : Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano.  Located at :  http://langwitches.org/blog/2011/06/20/reflectu00adreflectingu00adreflection/ .  License :  CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Content Adapted from Prior Learning Portfolio Development  by Baker Lawley is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

English 101: Journey Into Open Copyright © 2021 by Christine Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Table of contents

• Made with Copyfolio
• Portfolio Tips

13 Creative Writing Portfolio Examples & How to Create Yours

Just as you need inspiration for writing, it also helps with putting together your writing portfolio . We’re here to provide you with exactly that, in the form of 13 creative writing portfolio examples.

They’re portfolio websites from different kinds of creative writers: some do poetry, some scriptwriting, some copywriting… One thing is for sure though: you’ll leave with ideas, excitement, and a clear vision of how to make your ideas come to life in your own portfolio.

Read until the end because we'll also show you how you can build yours easily, in 5 simple steps.

13 creative writing portfolio examples & why they’re excellent

1. macy fidel.

Macy used Copyfolio's Premier template and "Cardboard Clip" color palette to create her portfolio

This portfolio is great because...

• It has a crystal-clear tagline: you'll know at first glance what Macy does
• The projects are upfront: you don't need to search and click around to check out Macy's writing skills and style
• The homepage has a great about section with a CTA: you can find out a little more about her and know exactly what to do if you'd like to know more
• The bold background color makes it memorable amongst simple white portfolio websites

2. Esa Haddad

Esa's portfolio was made with Copyfolio's "Wallscape" template

• It beautifully shows how a creative writer can do more than just that. He's also a communications professional, doing technical and academic writing next to his creative and poetic endeavors.
• With a black background and white text , this site stands out. Having such a canvas makes it easy for bolder headlines and images to pop, leading the eyes nicely along the page.
• It has an easy way for you to get in touch. All you need to do is click the LinkedIn icon to visit his profile or navigate to the contact page to find out more.

3. Julia Tula

Julia created her portfolio with Copyfolio's "Artboard" template

• It has an aesthetic and consistent design. Using simple squares for thumbnails, in colors matching the color palette pulls the whole site's design together.
• Julia shows a great variety of creative writing pieces in her projects, including discussions about the theory of creative writing, creative non-fiction short stories, and fiction writing as well.
• It showcases Julia's brilliant writing skills with every word she's written on the site. From the tagline, to her about me section, it's all written beautifully.

4. Larissa Vasquez

Larissa created her site with the legacy version of Copyfolio's "Billboard" template .

• It sets the mood for her writing portfolio with a white, beige, and brown color scheme.
• The homepage features a photo of scraps of paper on the top —very fitting for a writer.
• Choosing a photo of herself with similar colors , then creating custom beige and brown project thumbnails really pulled it all together.
• It has a simple layout. On the homepage, Larissa added a short introduction, then dove right into her writing samples . This makes it easy for everyone to read her pieces and see her writing skills shine.

5. Andrea Arcia

Andrea created her portfolio with the legacy version of Copyfolio's "Letterpress" template

• Andrea used a constantly changing, but cohesive layout to keep you interested and engaged, even with a lot of text on the page.
• She started out with three projects in a portfolio grid but then went on to use columns to display text, adding images every second block. This is a great way if you want to introduce projects or showcase longer stories or poems without overwhelming your visitors.

6. Hannah Rogers

Hannah created her writer website using Copyfolio, and the “Typewriter” template .

• You'll know who Hannah is and what she does right away. She's a versatile creative writer and editor, currently sailing with Firmenich.
• It's easy to learn about her background too : after finishing her degree in English and Creative Writing, she perfected her skills, now offering copywriting, concept content creation, editing, and more.
• Her fields of expertise are also clear : creative writing, brand storytelling, and editing. Displayed with short descriptions for each, it's the perfect way to introduce them.
• It has great creative writing project displays . In the title, you can see her role (e.g. writer, creative lead, producer) —then you can check each piece published online if you click through.

Overall, the portfolio flows well, it’s clear at every step where you need to look, and she showcases her expertise wonderfully.

7. Shweta Shreyarthi

A brilliant structure and clear layout, if we do say so ourselves. She created it with Copyfolio .

• Shweta decided to use a crips white canvas, simple black text, and black and white photos as the base of her site. But to shake it up a little, she’s using an orange accent color, and a pastel but colorful background photo for a few of her sections.
• She has an amazing creative writing portfolio page , where she outlines what she does: she’s a creative communicator, using her copywriting and content creation skills in her work.
• Her expertise is illustrated with work samples , and supplemented with short explanations. You can explore her work in different categories: social media, executive communications, proposal writing, website copywriting, and more.
• The portfolio has a great variety of projects. In each category, she included 2-4 samples for visitors to check: illustrating them with a picture, writing a very brief description (with the client + category), and adding a clear CTA with a link.

8. Magd Elzahed

Magd made her creative writing portfolio with Copyfolio, using the “Typewriter” template .

• It has a distinctive and consistent branding , with the black-and-white top section and typewriter-like serif fonts.
• Shows Magd's mission upfront. She makes it clear that her aim is “to bring your ideas to life through the power of language.”
• an on-brand picture to illustrate it,
• a clear title with the name of the client,
• a short description of what the project was about,
• and a call-to-action button.
• Makes it easy to find out even more about each project if you're interested. Clicking on the buttons takes you to a page going into more detail on what exactly the project entailed, what her task was, and how the final results turned out.
• It has a lot more information available on additional pages: you can read about her journey, services, references, and more.

9. Charlie Labbett

Charlie's portfolio website was made with Copyfolio's "Typewriter" template

• The dark background makes it different from most creative writing portfolios. It also helps the lighter text and silver graphics to pop and draw your attention to them.
• Has a clear tagline , from which you'll know that Charlie's focus is writing horror, science fiction, and fantasy stories within the realm of creative writing.
• It showcases multiple types of writing projects: extracts from longer-form pieces alongside some poetry work. This shows how versatile his writing skills are.

10. Melissa Wade

This lovely portfolio website was built with Copyfolio, using one of the legacy templates, “Agenda” .

• It showcases the many talents Melissa has. She’s an Amazon best-selling author, content creator, brand ambassador, and more.
• Right at the start, she grabs readers’ attention with a strong headline. How? By talking not about herself per se —but about what she can provide them .
• She also added a nicely designed banner. On it are the things you’d typically write in that tagline: what it is exactly that you do, illustrated with more pictures of her and her book.
• The portfolio site uses pictures with harmonizing colors. The pink in her blouse matches the background of the banner and the colorful wall. It helped her create a professional look and stylish design.

11. Lara Ramirez

Lara built a fun and creative writing portfolio using Copyfolio’s “Journal” template .

• It sticks to one, cohesive color palette. See how she chose just a handful of colors, all matching her site’s palette, and only used them throughout the site? Follow her lead to ensure a great look for your own creative writing portfolio too!
• It features fun and unique design elements. Using simple blobs and flower shapes as the background of photos and mockups gives the portfolio a youthful and fun personality.
• Lara used mockups in her project thumbnails , which is an amazing way to elevate a portfolio and make it look even more professional.

12. Deeya Sonalkar

This creative writing portfolio website was made with Copyfolio’s “Journal’ template , combined with the “Charcoal” color palette.

• It sets the tone for a true creative writer portfolio with a Hemingway quote: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
• Deeya builds rapport with a portrait and a short introduction talking about her life-long passion for writing.
• It showcases her various projects , with the thumbnails mostly leading to websites and social media profiles she’s worked on. So visitors can see her words live, in action.
• The website has a consistent design , only using black-and-white images, and simple black text on a white background.

13. Genie Smith

Genie created her portfolio with one of Copyfolio's legacy templates, "Agenda"

• Genie uses images intentionally , to set the mood: hands in black and white, a typewriter, windows, etc.
• It has a deeper purpose other than just showcasing creative writing work . Formerly dealing with mental health issues, Genie turned to writing to help her heal herself —and to help others.
• The layout leads you along the page, keeping you interested . First, you can learn about the big picture of her life and work, then learn more about her, and in the end, check her writing pieces.

How to build your creative writing portfolio based on these examples

Checking out examples and getting ideas is an important first step… But then you’ll have to actually get started. Don’t worry, we’ll help you with the building process: we’ll outline how to create a stunning creative writing portfolio in just 5 easy steps.

1. Choose a platform & create an account

The first and maybe most important choice you’ll have to make is choosing a platform to build your portfolio website. Our recommendation is Copyfolio, a portfolio website builder that was designed for writers. It’s incredibly fast and easy to use, giving you all the help you need to create something powerful.

When you sign up, you can pick your profession (e.g. creative writer) and the goal of your site. Based on these, Copyfolio will generate a starter site for you.

The page and types of sections on them will be determined by your goal, while all the content inside the sections will be based on your profession. And yes, the latter applies to newly added sections too!

This will give you lots of ideas about what to write and where. All you'll have to do is personalize the text here and there and upload your own pictures. This leads us to the second step, to...

2. Personalize the content of your pages

You'll have an almost-complete site on your hands, but you still have to make it yours. So go over your pages and personalize their contents.

The most important part will be the top of your homepage. That's what everyone sees at first —and whether they'll keep checking your portfolio will depend on it too.

If you chose a writing portfolio template with a photo at the top, then try to find a nice picture of yourself to upload there. That'll help build rapport with your visitors.

If you're not comfortable putting yourself out there like that, you can choose a template with no picture, or upload a decorative one like Macy or Julia did above.

3. Add your creative writing samples

Once the basics are done, it’s time to add your projects. Creative writing samples give viewers a chance to see your writing skills in action and as such, they’re an essential part of your portfolio.

(Need a little help with writing yours? Check out our writing sample templates !)

Make sure you choose thumbnail images for them that all go together color- and design-wise, and add 4-6 of them for a good variety.

In Copyfolio , you can add 3 types of projects: case study pages, PDF files, or external links. Whichever you choose, we'll add a thumbnail image for you. When someone clicks on it, the project will open, in the case of PDFs and external links, in a new tab.

4. Set a custom portfolio URL

To put the cherry on top of a professional creative writing portfolio website, you should set a custom URL for it.

If you're not a freelancer, you can simply customize the ending of your URL. In that case, it's going to look something like this: https://copyfol.io/v/dorka —that's the link to our writer's own site, actually.

If you have bigger plans for personal branding, expanding your career, or going freelance, it's best you get a proper domain. You can buy one right in Copyfolio that'll be automatically connected to your site. Or if you've bought one already somewhere else, you can easily connect that too.

+1: Customize your extra settings : SEO, favicon, and more

This 5th step is not essential —that's why we named it a +1. But these little things can add a lot to the overall feel and performance of your portfolio. So if you have the time, we recommend you to go through them and customize each to your brand.

Extra things you could do are:

• Optimizing your SEO settings. You can write custom meta titles and descriptions for each page + upload a preview image that appears when the page is shared online.
• Set a custom favicon. It's the browser icon that appears next to the name of your page and it helps people to recognize your site amongst all the tabs they have open.
• Write a blog. All it takes is adding a blog section and clicking the "Add new blog post button" and your blog is ready to go. It's amazing to showcase your writing skills and share your musings with the world.
• Finetune your design. In Copyfolio, you can switch up the look of your site in one click, using global palettes and presets. Play around with the colors and fonts to see which one matches your brand the most.

Create your creative writing portfolio with Copyfolio!

Sounds pretty easy, right? And even if you have questions along the way, the blog and the in-app prompts and guiding questions will be there to give a helping hand. The Copyfolio Team is also always just an email away.

Give it a try, create your creative writing portfolio for free with Copyfolio today!

Dorka Kardos-Latif

Digital marketer & portfolio expert, the face behind all content on Copyfolio 👋

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All students in a First-year Writing course at UGA produce a polished portfolio of their semester's work in the class.

Portfolio support documents

Guidelines for writing the Introductory Reflective Essay   (RTF)

Portfolio Grading Rubric (RTF)

The Portfolio

The Portfolio Project helps you develop into a proficient writer by offering you multiple opportunities to practice and demonstrate to others your mastery of writing as an art. In this class, students will write a minimum of three graded papers plus other pieces of writing assigned by the teacher. Part of each student’s course grade will also be determined by a portfolio of written work. The portfolio will count as 30% of your final grade and will replace the Final Examination as the culminating measure of your achievement in ENGL 1101 or ENGL 1102 this semester.

For both students and teachers, portfolios offer many advantages over other forms of assessment. First-and probably most important, from the student’s point of view-writers gain more control over their writing and therefore over their grades. Instead of demonstrating your skill in a single essay, the final examination, you will create, select, revise and polish different pieces for the portfolio throughout the semester. Within boundaries established by the First-year Writing Program, you select the pieces to include in your portfolio; you will have opportunities to consult with your teacher and peers about the portfolio’s contents and to revise those pieces you choose to include; finally, you will have an opportunity to explain the merits of your portfolio as part of the assessment process. For the same reasons, teachers also like this method of evaluation: including portfolios in writing assessment allows them to focus on revision, on improvement, and on a process of collaboration among student, teacher, and peers.

When you have completed this course, your portfolio   will provide you with a readily accessible collection of your writing that can continually grow and change shape, reflecting your achievements in your academic major and, eventually, forming the basis of a professional portfolio that can accompany you as you leave the University of Georgia for a further world of work or study.

What is in the portfolio?

 As stated in the  FYW Handbook , students in the First-year Writing Program write a minimum of three graded papers. For your final assessment, you will compose and submit for evaluation an electronic portfolio that includes the following seven components: 

A biography of the portfolio author and, if you like, a picture of yourself or other image.  The biography should provide a short introduction to you, the author of the portfolio. You may include a photo of yourself or an image that relates to ideas discussed in your portfolio. The goal of your biography should be to introduce yourself as a writer .

The Introductory Reflective Essay. The most important element in your portfolio, the Introductory Reflective Essay (IRE) (usually 750-1500 words) ties together all the exhibits in your portfolio; it helps you describe and reflect on your writing processes, with your exhibits providing the supporting evidence .

Two revised essays from the course. These pieces provide evidence of your best critical thinking, argumentative strategies, prose style, and editing skills. They represent your most “finished” pieces of writing.

One revision exhibit that demonstrates your composing process and revision skills.  For this exhibit, students typically present a portion of a paper (e.g., a paragraph or the thesis statement); and demonstrate the development of this piece of writing through several drafts. Your task is to clearly show how your writing changed between drafts and to include explaining commentary on your revision process to readers.

One peer review exhibit that demonstrates your work in reviewing or responding to the work of other writers. Again, your task is to demonstrate the quality of your work and to explain your peer review process. 

One wild card submission. In the past, students have submitted journals, photos with captions, short stories, poems, letters, song lyrics, slideshow presentations, scans of drawings with comments, podcasts, and music files. Some students create new exhibits especially to fit with their portfolio theme. In thinking about selecting or creating a wild card, consider how it fits into your overall portfolio rationale.

While your instructor may have you turn in artifacts to eLW for workshopping and peer review, you will turn in your final portfolio to eLC under "Assignments."  There are resources describing the process of submitting a portfolio in eLC:  a video and a text document.   Students can find these resources in their eLC course under "Content" --> "FYW Resources and Info"

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WEBSITE ESSENTIALS

12 best writing portfolio examples and how to create your own

• Brandi Hunter

Get started by: Creating a website →  | Getting a domain →

When it comes to starting a business  around your writing, visibility is everything. The more well-curated and attention-grabbing your writing is, the higher the chance that potential clients and publications will notice your talent. Making a website  that presents your writing portfolio can help introduce the industry to your talent and invite new work.

You may be thinking, “I’m a writer, not a website designer”—that’s where Wix can help. Its templates and beginner-friendly website builder make getting started as straightforward as it can get. To get the creative juices flowing, here are 12 writing portfolio examples from Wix users. Later on, we’ll provide a more straightforward step-by-step guide to building your own.

Start building your online portfolio  with Wix today.

12 writing portfolio examples

Jed Donahue

Sam Carlson Creative

Lauryn Higgins

Jessica Van Devanter

Madison Gray

Jane-Ellen Robinet

Christina Sterbenz

Bryn Dippold

Charlotte Kho

Emma Newell

Maddie Pfeiffer

Rachel A.G. Gilman

01. Jed Donahue

Jed Donahue’s website is a great example of how speaking to your client’s pain points can compel them to reach out. The homepage header copy, “When you need great content, I’m here to help,” focuses on the customer’s needs. Testimonials from previous clients provide proof that Jed can deliver results. Meanwhile, the “What I can do for you” section gives a practical breakdown of the workflow and services that clients can expect.

02. Sam Carlson

Sam Carlson takes his writing portfolio a step further by putting his client work front and center. He highlights his creative flair and prowess as a copywriter by including engaging introductions for each case study. Every project page boasts a concise and clever summary, followed by the client's logo and key project assets. Additionally, his "Fun" page, which presents his personal projects, offers a glimpse of his hobbies and talents outside of writing.

03. Lauryn Higgins

If you, like Lauryn Higgins , have an extensive writing portfolio that includes several bylines with well-known media companies, you can strategically add publication logos to your website and link them to your author pages to show off your credibility. On her “Awards and Publications” page, she features snapshots of some of her best clips, along with several awards.

04. Jessica Van Devanter 

If you don’t have any visual content to display and don’t want to go through the process of finding a set of free-to-use visuals that match your branding and content, take a look at Jessica Van Devanter’s writing portfolio. By making the site’s design the focal point, she bypasses the need for external graphics or images that may not align with her branding. 

Her logo, a shrewd-looking fox, serves as the background for the large header, which captures the viewer's attention upon arrival. Below it, a mountain graphic underlays the main content area, providing a sense of continuity without overpowering the text. 

The structure of each page is reminiscent of a timeline, with her written works positioned as milestones, guiding visitors through her professional journey. The bright green and white font colors provide a deliberate contrast against the muted blue background, ensuring readability and drawing the eye to her written work.

Use Wix’s logo maker  to start building out your personal brand.

05. Madison Gray

As a writer and an artist, Madison Gray masterfully demonstrates both skill sets throughout her portfolio. Pairing her highlighted works with original images draws visitors in and creates a visually engaging narrative of her talents. Each project page indicates which skills she utilized to complete the project, offering a comprehensive understanding of her multifaceted abilities.

06. Jane-Ellen Robinet  

Jane-Ellen Robinet limits her writing portfolio to a page to help website visitors get the information they need quickly. The above-the-fold section summarizes her unique value proposition (“INSIGHT + PERSPECTIVE + EXPERIENCE”) and provides specific job titles for the services she provides (“Editor | Writer”). The header features anchor links to each section of the page to ensure easy navigation. 

07. Christina Sterbenz

Rather than categorizing work by publications, Christina Sterbenz structures her portfolio page around writing topics and pairs each section with a compelling image from one of the relevant clips. This strategy adds visual appeal and gives each topic a personal touch, making the stories more approachable and intriguing to visitors. The images, paired with informative captions, humanize the subjects, enticing readers to delve deeper into her work.

In terms of website design, the portfolio benefits from a clean layout and a modern, minimalist font, which together enhance the site's readability and aesthetic appeal. Visitors can effortlessly scan the pages, finding what they are looking for without feeling overwhelmed. Additionally, the consistent use of design motifs—such as circles and lines throughout the site—contributes to a cohesive and memorable brand identity.

Like this format? Use this creative CV website template  to get started.

08. Bryn Dippold  

Bryn Dippold uses Wix’s blog maker  to showcase her work samples. This approach of republishing content directly on her portfolio, rather than merely linking out to external publications, serves as a strategic method for keeping visitors on her site for longer and providing a comprehensive view of her work.

Many Wix website templates already come with an integrated blog. Alternatively, you can choose to add the blog feature to any template, tailoring it to fit your unique style. Wix allows you to customize the blog settings, enabling you to curate and present your best work in a manner that aligns with your professional image and goals. 

09. Charlotte Kho 

Charlotte Kho uses neutral colors, layered design elements and striking imagery to introduce herself as a digital and creative storyteller. The “Resume” page provides a lot of information, but its clean layout is easy on the eyes, and you have the option to download her CV. On the “Work” page, Charlotte offers a small selection of her best work, plus links to view more of her published pieces.

Like this layout? Make it your own as Charlotte did by customizing this business CV website template .

10. Emma Newell 

Emma Newell's website demonstrates a balance of simplicity and engaging elements, creating a visually appealing and user-friendly experience. The site employs subtle animations that add a dynamic touch without overwhelming the visitor. Notably, when you click on any link in the menu bar, the content below appears to swipe out of view as new content takes its place. This seamless effect maintains the homepage's structure and provides an uninterrupted browsing experience.

11. Maddie Pfeifer

Maddie Pfeifer effectively leads with her experience by featuring her resume on the homepage. It details her past work, highlights her skillset and lists the awards she has received in the course of her career. We appreciate that she prominently placed her contact information above the fold for easy accessibility.

Her website is a model of organization, making excellent use of Wix’s advanced menu features . The dropdown functionality in her navigation bar allows for an expanded array of options, enhancing the user experience. Visitors, when exploring the “Portfolio” page link, are greeted with the option to select content categories like “Event coverage” or “Crime & courts,” tailoring their browsing to their interests.

12. Rachel A.G. Gilman 

Rachel A.G. Gilman elevates her homepage's simplicity with a playful, animated headshot, contrasting colors and a classic font choice, creating a dynamic first impression. Under the “Writing” tab, her comprehensive archive is meticulously sorted into distinct categories, making it easy to sift through her published work and accomplishments.

How to make a writing portfolio of your own

After exploring some of the best portfolio website examples , you’re probably eager to get started on learning how to make a portfolio  of your own. Whether you're a seasoned writer or just getting started, these tips will help you present your work in a way that captivates and communicates your unique voice and skills. 

01. Identify your target audience

To properly tailor your site design to your audience, you need to identify who you’re looking to impress. For instance, if you’re using this type of website  to pitch to editors, you might consider spotlighting your best features or most impressive bylines. On the other hand, if you’re cultivating a professional portfolio  for freelance clients, you might want to put testimonials or a list of services front and center.

02. Establish your goals 

Setting clear goals is crucial to track your progress and success. If your objective is to boost engagement with freelance clients, you might measure this by the number of inquiries or project offers you receive through your portfolio site. On the other hand, if increasing your visibility as a writer online is your goal, you could focus on monitoring website traffic, page views, or how long visitors stay on your site. Regularly assessing these aspects will help you understand what's effective and what needs improvement in your portfolio.

03. Choose the right platform

When looking for a platform for your online presence, choose a portfolio website builder  that aligns with your technical ability and the amount of time you can dedicate to maintenance. Although creating a bespoke website might be impressive and a simple clippings curator (such as Muck Rack) would be convenient, it’s a better idea to go for a builder that combines the best of both worlds, offering both customizability and convenience. 

With Wix, you’ll have hundreds of customizable templates to choose from and AI tools that make designing and filling it with images a breeze. Furthermore, Wix enriches your website with features like built-in forms, custom email addresses, and newsletter capabilities, ensuring you can easily connect with your audience and maintain those connections effortlessly.

Check out this selection of Wix website templates for writers .

04. Decide how you want to structure your showcase

When building the “Works” or “Clips” section of your online writing portfolio, your focus should be on showcasing your writing as well as highlighting the outlets you've collaborated with. Select pieces that represent your best work and reflect the type of work you aspire to continue doing. Remember, it's always about quality over quantity. A handful of outstanding pieces will have a greater impact than a multitude of average ones.

If you're at the beginning of your career and lack professional bylines, don't hesitate to include your best work from college or independent projects. Additionally, consider starting a blog that reflects the kind of work you aim to do professionally. 

05. Build an archive

Imagine losing your most valued work if a website goes down or a publisher removes your article. To prevent this, create an archive on your portfolio site. By uploading and publishing posts using the Wix content management system, you not only safeguard your work but also boost your site’s SEO and engage visitors more effectively. However, remember to check your contracts, as some publishers may restrict this. If time is limited, consider downloading your articles as PDFs and linking to them on a dedicated page. It's best to maintain this archive separately from your featured works, ensuring they continue to be the main attraction.

06. Flesh out the rest of your site

Your writing portfolio is more than just your work; it's a complete presentation of your professional persona. Each page on your site plays a critical role in telling your story. Here's how to make them count:

Home: The homepage is your portfolio's front door, welcoming and guiding visitors. It's crucial that this page clearly communicates what you offer as a writer. Make sure visitors can instantly understand your area of expertise and writing style.

About: On your “About” page, detail your professional journey, educational background and skill set. This page is an excellent place to infuse personality into your resume. Consider including a PDF version of your resume so hiring managers can add it to their databases.

Contact:  The “Contact” page is your open invitation for communication. Offer multiple methods to reach you, such as a contact form and an email address. Consider using scheduling software  to make it easy for potential clients to set up consultation calls. 

When writing the copy for these pages, make sure your tone is consistent, engaging and speaks to your desired audience. If incorporating imagery, make sure they’re high-quality, complement the text and reinforce your professional image. Each element should seamlessly blend to form a cohesive and inviting online presence.

07. Test and publish

Broken links, grammatical errors or faulty contact forms may lead visitors to doubt the quality of your work or discourage them from reaching out. Make sure to do a thorough assessment of your site, and consider sharing your writing portfolio with others to get their feedback.

08. Update your website

Regularly update your portfolio with your latest work. This keeps your site fresh and shows potential clients your active involvement and range of skills. A current portfolio can also inspire new project ideas among visitors.

Top tips for your writing portfolio

When it comes to planning, creating and maintaining your writing portfolio, there are a number of tips to help you create a great one.

Tailor your portfolio to the specific writing niche or genre you're pursuing. Include samples that demonstrate your expertise and writing style in that area. Your writing portfolio is a showcase of how well you with with words and content, make sure it reflects that to the best of your ability and experience.

Prioritize showcasing your strongest writing samplespieces, even if it means having fewer samples. Choose work that highlights your skills, versatility, and ability to meet client expectations.

Each piece in your portfolio should tell a story. Briefly explain the project's context, your approach, the challenges faced and the outcomes achieved.

Include testimonials from satisfied clients for the purpose of adding social proof and to demonstrate the quality of your work.

Make your portfolio easy to navigate. Use a clear menu, categorize your work and implement smooth transitions between pages.

Let your personality and writing style shine through. Use visuals, tone of voice, and layout to create a cohesive and memorable brand identity that reflects you and your work.

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the Portfolio in English 131 (and all 100-Level PWR Courses)

In  English 131, 70% of a student’s final grade is determined by a final portfolio. A typical 131 Final Portfolio consists of a selection of three to five revised showcase pieces, including at least one of the two major projects, and a series of critical reflections that discuss these showcase pieces. While students are required to include original drafts of all their work done over the course of the quarter, they are empowered to select which assignments will be evaluated and explain their choices in the critical reflection.

The remaining 30% of the student’s course grade is determined by participation.

This chapter provides an overview of the rationale behind using portfolios in English 131, shares strategies for how to prepare students to compile their portfolios, discusses how to determine students’ final grades through the evaluation of their portfolio and class participation.

The Philosophy behind Portfolio Evaluation

The philosophy behind portfolio grading in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric is captured in three words: COLLECT, SELECT, and REFLECT.

• COLLECT : Over the quarter, students work on various assignment sequences—a sequence consists of several “short” assignments (generally two to three pages in length) that provide an opportunity to practice and build the skills they will need in order to successfully complete a “major” assignment (of five to seven pages). These sequences run through approximately eight weeks of the quarter.
• SELECT : Out of all the assignments completed during the sequences, students then select three to five showcase pieces (at least one of those being a major paper) from these assignments, to be evaluated in the portfolio.
• REFLECT : In their reflection for the portfolio, students assess their own writing in terms of the course outcomes. Students develop their meta-cognition—which research in composition studies has shown to be a skill that transfers to new writing situations—by reflecting on how the selected writing assignments act as “evidence” to showcase their successful demonstration and fulfillment of the course outcomes.

The best reason to use portfolios in the writing classroom is consistency with our belief that revision and reflection are key elements of developing a mindful and effective writing practice . If we teach in a process-based classroom, in which revision is emphasized, then we present our students with a contradiction when we grade individual assignments. Portfolios honor process and revision . Additionally, our students would be likely to receive grades that do not reflect their development over the course of a quarter. For instance, if a student received a 2.5 on the first assignment and 4.0 on her second, her average would be 3.3. But doesn’t the grade on the second assignment suggest that she has come much further in her ability to demonstrate the outcomes? (Though you can focus on what you have taught “so far” when grading, this is often difficult.) By grading primarily on what a student can do at the end of the quarter, we avoid penalizing them for what they weren’t yet able to do at the start of the quarter. Another reason for using portfolios is the opportunity portfolios provide for students to reflect on and assess their performance in light of established learning outcomes; such self-reflection on one’s thinking (or metacognition) is a crucial part of one’s ability to adapt to and write effectively in various contexts. A final reason for using portfolios has to do with our role as coaches rather than as evaluators. Most writing teachers prefer to function as coaches, as composition scholar Peter Elbow calls it. Judging is deferred in a portfolio evaluation curriculum and is instead replaced by guidance and critical feedback throughout the quarter. We will discuss these different types of evaluation in more detail in English 567.

Building the Portfolio: What Does It Include?

Most portfolios have three basic parts:

The Critical Reflection

In a portfolio cover letter (for paper-based portfolios) or reflective web essay (for online portfolio), students use the writing they’ve chosen for evaluation as evidence for arguing how they understand and can perform the course outcomes. The language that students use will come from the course outcomes; without this language students will not know what they are meant to be demonstrating. In this reflective piece, the students show they have a self-awareness of their writing and that they know when and why they are choosing certain strategies. As described above, students develop meta-cognitive skills through these reflections, with which students can use in other writing situations.

In order for students to be ready for the tasks involved in the final portfolio, and the critical reflection in particular, they need opportunities for self-reflection throughout the quarter. We strongly recommend that you plan opportunities for your students to reflect on their successes and failures in relation to the outcomes often and in writing. Reflection is not a transparent task that students will be able to do without instruction and in only one or two nights just before the final portfolio is due. Reflections that punctuate the quarter can serve as the basis for their selections and their explanations in the final reflection; the students will be grateful to have had the time to practice, and your final grading will go more smoothly because students will be more adept at producing what you are asking of them.

Paper-Based and Online Portfolios

In 1997, the PWR began using portfolios as a means of assessment. Currently, instructors have the option of using paper-based or online portfolios through Canvas or other UW tools, such as Google sites. Both options include the same required materials and assessment criteria. At the end of this chapter, we include student instructions for how to complete a paper-based and an online portfolio.

In a paper-based portfolio , students usually present their critical reflection in the form of a portfolio cover letter (approximately three single-spaced pages) following a standard business letter format (sample letters are available on the PWR website). The portfolio then includes the ready-for-evaluation major assignment and two to four shorter assignments, along with their drafts. For a portfolio to be considered complete, it also needs to include all the remaining assignments completed throughout the quarter. Students usually submit their paper-based portfolios in a large manila envelope, binder, or clasped with a clip. (You may specify a standard submission format if you like.) Keep in mind that students should not leave their portfolios in a public space to be picked up later. If you decide to use paper-based portfolios, please establish a time and place when students can drop them off directly to you during office hours or slide them under your office door.

In an online portfolio , students submit all of the same materials they would in a paper-based portfolio via Canvas’s Assignment submission tool. They upload their critical reflection in the form of commentary (the textual equivalent of roughly three single-spaced pages), their revised and ready-for-evaluation major assignment, two to four shorter assignments, and all drafts of all assignments completed over the quarter (this section is referred to as the “Compendium). This option works particularly well if you have collected drafts through Canvas and commented on them electronically throughout the quarter.

Please note that you have the option of asking students to submit some portion of an online portfolio in paper format—a collection of first drafts with hand-written comments from you or peers, for example.

The annotated sample in the PWR Portfolio appendix of Writer/Thinker/Maker is an online portfolio.

There are many benefits, pedagogical and otherwise, of using online, rather than paper-based, portfolios in your class. These benefits include:

• Incorporating multi-media, multi-modal texts (such as PowerPoint, videos, and websites) as part of the portfolio;
• Incorporating aspects of visual rhetoric and design; and
• Widening the audience for the portfolio beyond the instructor, especially for peer review;
• Saving the reams and reams of paper used in the paper-based model (which students generally never pick up after the end of the quarter).
• Using electronic materials generated throughout the quarter decreases the odds of students losing these materials, especially in the case of hand-written feedback from their peers and instructor.

Online Portfolio Templates

There are two ready-made templates of online portfolios that you can choose from. While both of these templates allow students to present a critical reflection alongside a collection of work, they organize the reflection and work differently:

Option 1 — Organized by Outcome : a series of webpages each addressing a specific outcome, and

Option 2 — Organized by Showcase Piece : on a series of webpages each addressing a specific assignment.

Please note that with either template, you have the option of asking students to submit the non-graded (but required) drafts either in paper form or electronically. If asked to submit materials electronically, students may need to scan some of their work in order to capture handwritten comments. However, if you’ve been commenting on students’ work electronically all along using Word’s Comment feature, and your students and you have been using Canvas as a way to turn in work and return it with feedback, students can easily just attach these commented-on electronic drafts into their compendium of work.

1. The Template Organized by Outcome

In the template organized by outcome, the instructions prompt students to consider the homepage as the introduction to the portfolio. In this section, they welcome their reader and provide an introduction to their critical reflection. This is followed by a separate page for each of the four course outcomes in which the student will articulate how the paper(s) attached to each respective outcome are specifically demonstrating and fulfilling that outcome. This approach is helpful if your assignments are designed to focus on one or two outcomes over the others. Here’s what the homepage of a portfolio organized by outcome looks like:

2. The Template Organized by Assignment

This template is similar to the one organized by outcome (the homepage and final reflection are likely identical) but is organized by assignment. In other words, students will specifically discuss how each of the four outcomes are represented within each respective paper. This approach is valuable for it imagines that some aspect of all four outcomes must be present in successful papers.

Responding to Student Writing with Portfolio Evaluation

The differences between responding to a single student draft and the final submission of the portfolio are typically categorized as formative versus summative evaluation . Until the student submits the portfolio, any submitted work counts as a draft and should be read and responded to as a draft. That means the form of the response should be oriented towards questioning, readerly (as opposed to evaluative) responses, and requests for more information and more detail, rather than summative, evaluative responses.

In addition to your responses and feedback during the course, we ask that you build in opportunities for peer response and, as mentioned earlier, for continuing self-assessment/reflection for the writer. The writer’s self-assessment will typically deal with issues of intention: what do they intend for readers to understand? Peer responses may take a variety of forms, but often starting with highly descriptive responses is good policy. Some students see peer responses as their one opportunity to “be the teacher,” often with confusing or even incorrect information. Providing the opportunity to be purely descriptive blunts some of that evaluative tendency and gives the writer a chance to notice how their writerly intention translates into impact on the reader. The preferred schedule of reading has instructors setting a “due date” for a “final” draft of an assignment, subject to further revision for the submission of the final portfolio. Each assignment then has two due dates: one as a draft and one as a final submission in a portfolio (and perhaps both “first draft” and “second draft” dates for major papers or projects). The instructor and/or peers give comments on the draft, anticipating that the student may choose to revise it for the final portfolio. Emphasizing the student’s need to make choices about what to submit as their best work, we discourage instructors from taking that choice out of the student’s hands. If the instructor tells the student how to do everything, there isn’t much opportunity for the student to learn to make decisions and reflect on the outcomes of those decisions.

Grading the Portfolio

The portfolio represents 70% of the student’s course grade. In evaluating the portfolio, instructors should respond as a whole rather than grade assignments separately to arrive at several individual grades that are then averaged. Students are submitting their work as a culmination of the entire quarter’s work and not as separate essays, no matter what form you choose to have them submit the portfolio. Their critical reflections will address the work of the quarter as a body of work, showing how the selected portfolio corresponds to and demonstrates the learning outcomes in the course. In other words, the grading of the portfolios is holistic.

The best reason for not giving students a provisional grade on their drafts is that both the student and you, as the evaluator, are empowered to grade based on growth and effort rather than initial impressions of a student’s writerly capacities. Once you categorize the student as a 3.3 writer (B+), for example, you tend to stick with your original judgment. As a consequence, your student may think they already have a grade slot and won’t try to improve. Alternatively, the student who receives an early 3.7 (A-) may conclude that they don’t need to revise at all.

Though you will likely be adept at responding to drafts by the end of the quarter, you may face a new challenge: assigning grades to the portfolio and to students’ participation. What follows is the portfolio grading rubric we use to evaluate student portfolios. This rubric can help students evaluate their own work, help you assign grades, and help provide some feedback for students regarding what the number grades mean. Before you grade your first set of portfolios towards the end of your first quarter, the PWR director and assistant directors will hold a portfolio grading workshop to help you practice evaluating 131 portfolios.

The portfolio evaluation rubric is used as an assessment tool for both the critical reflection and the selected papers. Using the rubric, instructors assess students on their development and acquisition of skills (the outcomes) at the end of the quarter rather than at the beginning. Even though students are not given grades on their assignment drafts throughout the quarter, they do receive extensive feedback on these drafts. As a result, they have some idea about the areas of their writing that need improvement. As mentioned earlier, feedback on the drafts generally takes the form of reader-response and coaching comments. Judging comments can also be included, but these comments are not connected to a particular grade. In this way, portfolios are effective in emphasizing revision as an important part of the writing process.

Portfolios also most closely resemble a form of assessment that allows for and embodies social constructivism — writing is situated and must be contextualized. Students create their own context for the work in the portfolio because they get to shape their analysis of the assignments (i.e., the context in which they understood the assignment) in their reflection. Further, portfolios respond to the uneven development of individual student learning because assessment doesn’t take place until the end of the quarter (see Carroll).

Students do not receive composition credit for English 131 if they receive below a 2.0. The average grade across all sections is a 3.3.

PWR 100-level Course Portfolio Rubric

Finalized March 2023

Rubric Framing

The Program in Writing and Rhetoric centers equity, antiracism, and accessibility in its curricula and assessment approaches. PWR courses focus on students’ diverse linguistic and cultural resources and lived experiences and seek to support all students in critically developing their language and literacy practices for different audiences, genres, contexts, media, and situations. This rubric works toward these goals alongside the PWR 100-level course learning outcomes and the PWR’s Antiracist Writing Pedagogy and Program Praxis Statement.

The goal of this rubric is to help instructors and students work together to assess students’ writing growth in PWR courses. Instead of focusing on a static standard, the rubric emphasizes writing development and learning. It offers a space for negotiating what university-level writing can be and focuses on supporting students in understanding themselves as the best determiners of “good” work. Instructors and students alike can use this rubric to recognize students’ growing understanding of writing, revision, and learning. This is a way to resist assessment models that overemphasize final performance and/or static benchmarks rooted in standardized forms of English. Put another way, in PWR, students with different proficiencies, linguistic resources, and skills can earn a “Meets Expectations” portfolio grade if they engage in substantial revision and engage with writing concepts taught in the class.

This approach to assessment benefits from treating student learning and engagement holistically and grounding it within specific teaching contexts. Such an approach recognizes instructor and student positionality and the situated nature of learning and writing. To assess a student’s portfolio, instructors and students will find it helpful to work together to understand the rubric criteria and categories below along with the PWR 100-level course outcomes within the context of their class.

Portfolio Criteria

Read holistically, a successful portfolio will demonstrate students’ growing understanding of the PWR 100-level course outcomes and their development in the skills and capacities taught in the course. These skills and capacities may include but are not limited to recognizing how different elements of a rhetorical situation matter; coordinating, negotiating, and experimenting with various aspects of composing for diverse rhetorical effects and audiences; and assessing and articulating rationales for and effects of composition choices.

Portfolios must include the following elements:

• A critical reflection that illustrates an in-process metacognitive awareness of writing concepts, authorial positionality, and the impacts, stakes, consequences, and ethicality of composing choices for diverse rhetorical situations and audiences. To illustrate the above, reflections should address students’ composition and revision choices while drawing on a diverse range of texts from the course. These texts may include but are not limited to material from students’ own writing, specific points of feedback they received, in-class activities and discussions, and/or their own experiences.
• Showcase pieces that are substantially revised and highlight metacognitive engagement with the 100-level course outcomes. To illustrate substantial revision, showcase pieces must go beyond surface-level editing and engage in a variety of revision activities such as (re)brainstorming, (re)drafting, (re)reading, (re)writing, and (re)thinking. In working with constructive feedback, revisions should be accountable to different perspectives and arguments and involve critical considerations of composers’ positionalities as part of the revision process.
• A complete compendium of all short and major assignments from the course. All assignments, especially the showcase pieces, must meet the criteria and expectations outlined in the assignment prompt in order for the compendium to be considered complete.

Rubric Categories

Meets expectations (4.0 – 3.7).

Portfolios in the “Meets Expectations” category satisfy each criterion and are not missing any portfolio components. For a portfolio to be rated in this category it must contain a critical reflection, substantially revised showcase pieces, and a compendium of all assignments. All elements must meet the word count and expectations of the course’s portfolio prompt. Each showcase piece must be substantially revised from students’ earlier drafts based on feedback from the instructor, peers, and/or students’ own reflections. Revised pieces might still have some typos and language issues, as well as opportunities for future revisions that were not addressed, but the critical reflection should convey the portfolio’s strengths as well as areas for improvement.

Meets Most Expectations (3.6 – 3.1)

These portfolios satisfy most of the portfolio criteria detailed above but may be uneven in one or two or may be missing a minor portfolio component. Holistic reading across the portfolio can reveal different configurations of the following concerns: an overall strong but uneven critical reflection and/or understanding of course concepts and/or writing within the learning outcomes; limited revision of one showcase piece; or a compendium assignment that is present but may be short of the expectations in the prompt. Portfolios that are missing a major project and/or that have a combination of several issues named here do not meet the criteria for the “Meets Most Expectations” category. Too, a portfolio might be placed in the “Meets Most Expectations” category if all aspects of the portfolio fall into “Meets Expectations” but it is missing a short assignment in the compendium.

Unevenly Meets Expectations (3.0 – 2.5)

Portfolios in the “Unevenly Meets Expectations” category demonstrate the majority of the rubric criteria detailed above but may be uneven across the criteria and/or be missing portfolio components. Read holistically, these portfolios may have some combination of the following concerns: critical reflections are less substantive, uneven, or spare; one or both showcase pieces are minimally revised or largely unrevised from earlier drafts; one or two compendium assignments are present but do not meet expectations; or portfolio elements reflect a misunderstanding of several learning outcomes and/or course concepts. Another way that portfolios may be placed into the “Unevenly Meets Expectations” category is if they are missing a minor element such as a short assignment and exhibit one or more of the above issues. A portfolio should not be placed in “Unevenly Meets Expectations” if it exhibits all or numerous of the issues described here.

Meets Minimum Expectations (2.4 – 2.0)

“Meets Minimum Expectations” portfolios meet the essential requirements of the criteria while having room for significant improvement and/or may be missing portfolio components. Portfolios in this category meet the portfolio requirements while exhibiting numerous concerns such as: critical reflections are spare and/or do not fully articulate writing concepts; critical reflections offer limited or sketchy awareness of writing choices and/or a misunderstanding of one or more course outcomes; showcase pieces exhibit little to no revision; assignments are present in the compendium but do not meet prompt expectations. To be placed in “Meets Minimum Expectations,” the compendium may be missing one to two short assignments, but there must be a critical reflection and showcase pieces, even if they fall short on some expectations. Students whose portfolios are placed in the “Meets Minimum Expectations” category can earn the “C” credit unless the participation grade pulls the overall course grade below 2.0.

Does Not Meet Expectations (1.9 – 0.0)

Portfolios in the “Does Not Meet Expectations” category do not meet the criteria. Portfolios placed in this category may exhibit a combination of several significant issues: a spare or missing critical reflection; limited or no revision of multiple showcase pieces; or multiple assignments that miss the word count or expectations. Portfolios might also be placed in this category if the compendium is missing a major project and/or several short assignments. Portfolios in the “Does Not Meet Expectations” category do not demonstrate sufficient work to earn the “C” credit.

Getting Technical: The Grading Scale

Though the above information is helpful, you’ll find that the UW grading scale provides many choices (some say too many) within the categories listed above. The UW grading scale is as follows ( more at this link) .

This grading scale may be rather different than the grading scale you were graded on (where the lowest C was a 2.0, or where a 3.7 was an A-). You can approach grading your students in a variety of ways. Using the rubric and grading scale above:

• Begin with letter grades . You may find that it is easier for you to identify a “B+” portfolio; then figure out what it should be on the numerical chart. However, this can be tricky, as you have to do some “translating” and are still only left with a range of grades.
• Begin with percentages . This can be useful, though there is again a translation issue, as the scale does not correspond to percentages precisely.
• “Go with numbers.” Try to familiarize yourself with the system and start working directly with the numbers. This will be helpful in 200-level teaching, where portfolios often aren’t used.

A good strategy, especially when first grading, is to put “temporary” grades on the portfolios, making notes for yourself that you can eventually change. Then, you can put the portfolios in order, and look through to see if the progression seems to make sense. Of course, it isn’t a strict progression, but this approach allows you to question yourself (“I gave this a 3.1 and this a 3.1?”) and to identify anomalous grades (often given to good students, bad students, and students at the bottom or top of the pile). Also, you can get a physical look at how many As, Bs, Cs, and Ds you are giving.

Participation Grades

While the portfolio grade represents 70% of the total course grade, 30% is reserved for participation , which can include a wide range of different kinds of activities and practices, all focused on supporting students’ ongoing presence and learning. A review of 99 PWR syllabi from Spring 2022 indicated that 80% of syllabi named class discussions/group work as part of the participation grade and between 40-50% of syllabi reviewed pointed to five other elements: participation in conferences; absences/presences; peer review; informal writing; and assignment completion. It’s important that activities assessed under participation be activities that support students’ engagement with the PWR 100-Level Course Outcomes.

Students should pass the class if they submit the portfolio and all drafts for peer review on time, complete the required number of peer readings, submit all reading logs or journals, complete all required self-assessments and reflections, make use of additional resources (such as the Odegaard Writing and Research Center, the CLUE Writing Center, or the Instructional Center, when necessary), and respond with revision or rethinking to your comments and the comments of their peers. Remember, most students at the University of Washington do not consider a 2.0 (C) a successful grade, nor the “passing” 0.7 (D-), a grade that counts in the grade point average but doesn’t fulfill the Composition Credit general education requirement.

There is great variance in how instructors calculate the participation grade, varying from meticulous record keeping using an online system such as Catalyst’s Grade Book, to eyeballing a sheet of checks. Some tips:

• Decide Your Strategy Early: Early on, you need to decide how you are going to grade the daily assignments your students turn in, such as in-class freewrites, short responses, and questions brought to class. You will also need to keep track of drafts and peer reviews submitted, which factor into the participation grade. Most choose to use a check, check plus, check minus system (or a version of it), and it is a good idea to decide how you plan to translate that into some sort of grade. Though it will be tempting to eyeball the sheet of checks and make an estimate, this will not be helpful if the student contests the grade. Also, you will likely need to keep track of at least two types of participation: (1) the sorts of submitted assignments discussed above, and (2) actual in-class participation. You’ll need to decide how to keep track of the latter: will you mark daily if they participate? weekly? how do office hour visits factor in? e-mail? It’s a good idea to have these things worked out before the end of the quarter.
• Know Your Late Policy (and stick to it): Your late policy, as stipulated in your syllabus, may also play a role in your participation grading. As there are no grades given throughout the quarter, the late policy can be an important “motivating” force—stick to it!
• Keep Your Students Informed: Like with their final grades, students often imagine that their participation grades are higher than they actually are. You can keep them informed by discussing their progress in conference, and also by providing an indication on a draft you’re returning (maybe above their name). This can be as vague as simply indicating a “+”, “ok”, or “-”, or, if you are keeping different sorts of records, you can give some sort of percentage or ballpark grade. Additionally, if you are using Grade Book, you can publish your students’ individual participation grades that they can access throughout the quarter simply by logging into Canvas. You may also want to give some written commentary, such as: “I’d love to hear more from you in class,” “Thanks for participating each day!” or “Attendance is causing many missed daily assignments.” Of course, for problem students, you’ll likely want to discuss problems directly with them.

For more information and discussions of grading, visit the Faculty Resource on Grading (FROG) at http://depts.washington.edu/grading/grading.htm .

Portfolio Assessment Session (Portfolio Day)-Fall Quarter, Finals Week

In the fall quarter of your first quarter teaching, you will need to  make your portfolios due by the second day of finals week  (at the latest). During finals week of your first quarter, you will attend a four-hour portfolio reading session, in which the PWR Director and ADs support you in assessing your students’ writing portfolios. While we will conduct activities aimed at grade calibration, the ultimate focus, unlike traditional norming sessions, is less on achieving consensus regarding what grade should be granted to a given portfolio and more on helping you better understand the tensions and politics underscoring assessment; articulate your own approach to assessment within the context of your teaching philosophy and organic classroom practices; and navigate tensions among institutional standards, standards within the PWR, and your individual pedagogy. Given the linguistic diversity of PWR classrooms and the socioeconomic factors that impact students’ performance of Standardized Academic English (SAE), the PWR—along with writing programs nationwide—calls to question the strict focus on “correctness” and performance of SAE as the basis of grading. Because the PWR places more emphasis on students’ writing process, revision, and growth, as well as on their refinement of metacognitive/rhetorical awareness as central transferable skills, “norming” final portfolio products for consensus without attention to classroom context risks undermining these aims. The PWR portfolio session seeks to balance the need for communal standards in our writing program with the myriad factors, including variation in instruction, student incomes, and teaching philosophy that might affect assessment.

Discussing the Portfolio with Your Students

The following information provides a more in-depth explanation of portfolios that you can use for handouts that you give to your students at the start of the portfolio sequence. You are free to modify this information as you see fit for the context of your particular class; however, all instructors should clearly identify the requirements for the portfolio—including the learning goals and requirements for paper selection. It is also helpful to provide students with a checklist of the items to include in their portfolios. As you will see, the language of the portfolio rubric is used throughout these two packets to emphasize how the portfolio will be evaluated. (For more sample materials, portfolio prompts, and a useful power point, please consult the PWR website.)

Portfolio Assignment Packet

Portfolio project description.

The final assignment in English 131 is to create a portfolio of your work, in which you select from, revise, organize, and reflect on your sequence-related writing in relation to the course outcomes. The portfolio is designed not only to allow you the opportunity to demonstrate what you have learned, but also to give you the advantage of being graded on a final proficient product. In this portfolio, you are graded on what you can do at the end of the quarter rather than at the beginning. The final portfolio, then, is a culmination of your efforts and allows you to select the assignments you feel represent your best work in relation to the course outcomes.

In creating a portfolio, you are producing in a new genre. Therefore, you should consider not only your portfolio’s content, but also its visual representation and organization. Just as you would with other genres, you should consider elements of design that are audience appropriate.

Portfolio Project Learning Objectives

The learning objective of the final portfolio is to COLLECT, SELECT, and REFLECT (through a claim-driven argument) on the sequence-related work in relation to the course outcomes. This means you are selecting three to five showcase pieces (including at least one major assignment) from the work you produced this quarter, and constructing an argument about how your selected work is demonstrating and fulfilling the course outcomes.

These outcomes are:

• To demonstrate an awareness of the strategies that writer’s use in different writing contexts.
• To read, analyze, and synthesize complex texts and incorporate multiple kinds of evidence purposefully in order to generate and support writing.
• To produce complex, analytic, persuasive arguments that matter in academic contexts.
• To develop flexible strategies for revising, editing, and proofreading writing.

Portfolio Project Instructions

The portfolio must include the following:

• Three to five showcase pieces (at least one must be a major paper)
• a critical reflection on these materials;
• and all drafts of your sequence related work.

In your reflection, create a compelling argument about how the selected assignments collectively demonstrate the four course outcomes. In order to support this argument, use evidence from your selected assignments, self-assessments, peer responses, and teacher responses. Quote or paraphrase from these artifacts to connect your work with the course outcomes.

In addition to the materials you select as the basis for your portfolio grade, your portfolio must include all of the sequence-related writing you were assigned in the course (both major papers and all the shorter assignments from both sequences). A portfolio that does not include all the above will be considered “Incomplete” and will earn a grade of 0.0-0.9. The grade for complete portfolios will be based on the extent to which the assignments you select demonstrate the course outcomes. Please see the grading rubric for a more detailed explanation of how portfolios are assessed. The portfolio will be worth 70% of your final grade.

The Portfolio cover page and table of contents

Your portfolio is an assemblage of all of the sequence-related work you’ve done this quarter. In addition, this portfolio showcases the work you feel best represents your learning of the course outcomes, and is accompanied by a critical reflection that argues for how your best work does so. In order to introduce the reader to your work, you will create a cover page and table of contents. This introductory material can take a number of forms. It can be simple and streamlined, or it can be something showier. But no matter how you choose to introduce your reader to your writing portfolio, remember that she or he is seeing it for the first time. What do they need to know? What impression do you want to make? How do you want to guide the reading of your quarter’s best work?

For example, you could organize your table of contexts this way:

• Critical Reflection
• The final forms of your 3-5 showcase pieces (at least one of which is a major paper)
• Previous drafts of the selected pieces with my comments, as well as any peer review sheets
• The rest of the assignments that you have done and attendant peer reviews, in chronological order from the beginning to the end

Remember, like all other genres, portfolios are rhetorical . This means that your organization choices have effects, and therefore you should carefully consider how you want your audience to experience and interact with your compendium of work.

Writing the Critical Reflection

Your critical reflection should be yet one more example of your ability to make claims, to utilize evidence, to analyze that evidence, and to draw pertinent conclusions. Your cover letter functions as a self-assessment of the writing you have done throughout the quarter. Here, you use your own writing as evidence of how you have performed the course outcomes. An outstanding critical reflection clearly indicates which items in the portfolio demonstrate the course outcomes, and makes a compelling argument for how they do so. The critical reflection displays thorough and thoughtful awareness of your own writing. You will incorporate evidence from the course outcomes, assignments, self-assessments, peer responses, and teacher responses. Strategically (and briefly) quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing passages from your own work (both strong and weak samples) is a great way to make your argument concrete.

In order to accomplish the above goals, your critical reflection should do the following:

• make a claim about how your writing as a whole responds to the requirements in the Portfolio Evaluation Rubric (This is not about making a grade claim, but about making an accomplishments claim);
• identify, analyze, and argue for how your portfolio selections demonstrate key course outcomes. This is successfully done through quoting and analyzing your own work in direct relation to the outcomes and the rubric;
• use the language of the course outcomes, the portfolio rubric, and your own assignments in ways that support your portfolio claim (Remember: You are not describing that you accomplished certain outcomes, but you are arguing for how your work accomplishes the outcomes).

An especially effective way to argue for how your final assignments demonstrate the course outcomes is to compare drafts of your work. This way, you can point to specific parts of your writing where you used teacher or peer comments to make earlier claims, analyses, syntheses, etc. more sophisticated in the final version.

Concluding your Critical Reflection

If there are aspects of the class and of your experience throughout the quarter that you would like to discuss, but haven’t been able to thus far, you might conclude your critical reflection by reflecting on those aspects. Remember, in order for these comments to serve an evaluative function, you should talk about them in relation to the course outcomes or the evaluation rubric. Like any conclusion, there are a number of avenues you can take. Here are some options, but feel free to invent your own:

• summarize how your writing within the entire portfolio represents the progress that you have made throughout the quarter;
• discuss how your portfolio as a whole displays thorough and thoughtful awareness of your own writing processes, habits, and strategies;
• discuss the ways in which your portfolio demonstrates risk-taking, originality, variety, and/or creativity;
• discuss any extra-class activities that enhanced your learning and writing. For example, the number of times that you went to the Writing Center (with dates) or any other tutorial help that you received;
• discuss how you see the work you’ve done this quarter translating to other situations, either in or out of school;
• discuss how you benefited from collaboration with your peers and/ or from conferences.

Selecting Assignments for Portfolio Evaluation

Throughout the quarter, this course has taught concepts of argumentation, development and support, organization, rhetorical choice/awareness, and conventions usage. However, the criteria for selecting essays can be highly subjective. Here are some questions and criteria for judging the qualities of an effective final portfolio paper. Consider these questions for selecting your showcase pieces:

Does the paper satisfy the assignment?

Look at your assignment sheet, look over your draft and instructor and peer comments, and consider whether your paper is on task. Satisfying the assignment also includes using assignment-appropriate conventional formatting and mechanics, and meeting the required length.

Does the paper effectively demonstrate the course outcomes? Which ones?

Part of your selection process should consider what course outcomes are being employed and practiced by the assignment. Take a look at the course outcomes, your assignment prompts, and instructor comments in order to narrow down which paper supports which outcome. Which of the skills or concepts are used, for what purpose, and to what degree? How does your paper demonstrate your understanding of the outcomes and what is the importance of the outcomes to your writing? You will need to choose different assignments to reflect the range and depth of the outcomes.

How much revision does the piece require?

While the ease of revision should not be your sole reason for selecting assignments for your portfolio, you may not want to choose a piece that would require a monumental investment of time and energy. Go with the assignments that stir interest, have a number of positive aspects upon which to build, and received positive feedback from your peers and other readers. Also consider whether you, yourself, are interested in and excited by the topic of that assignment. Why work on something you are not energized about?

Turning in the final portfolio

Please bring your final portfolio to my office [time] on [day and date]. Please indicate if you would like me to return your portfolio with comments. You may turn in your portfolio in a manila envelope or a secure notebook. If you would like me to return your portfolio by mail, you need to turn in a manila envelope along with a SASE (Self-addressed stamped envelope).

Don’t forget to double-check that ALL materials are included. An incomplete portfolio will earn a grade of 0.0-0.9.

Online Portfolio Packet

In creating an online portfolio, you are producing in a new genre. Therefore you should consider not only your online portfolio’s content, but also its visual representation and organization. Just as you would with other genres, you should consider elements of design that are audience appropriate.

The learning objective of the final portfolio is to COLLECT, SELECT, and REFLECT (through a claim-driven argument) on the sequence-related work in relation to the course outcomes.

Portfolio Project Instructions*

• a critical reflection on these materials, organized either by assignment or by outcome
• and all of your sequence-related drafts with my feedback collected in a “compendium of work.”

In your reflection, create a compelling argument about how the selected assignments collectively demonstrate the four course outcomes. In order to support this argument, use evidence from assignments, self-assessments, peer responses, and teacher responses. Quote or paraphrase from these artifacts to connect your work with the course outcomes.

*Additional Instructions Are Embedded in your Online Portfolio Template

Creating your Portfolio’s Homepage

Your portfolio is an assemblage of all of the sequence-related work you’ve done this quarter. In addition, this portfolio showcases the work you feel best represents your learning of the course outcomes, and is accompanied by a critical reflection that argues for how your best work does so. In order to introduce the reader to your work, you will create a homepage. This introductory page can take a number of forms. It can be simple and streamlined, or it can be something showier. But, no matter how you choose to introduce your reader to your writing portfolio, remember that she or he is seeing it for the first time. What do they need to know? What impression do you want to make? How do you want to guide the reading of your quarter’s best work?

Your critical reflection should be yet one more example of your ability to make claims, to utilize evidence, to analyze that evidence, and to draw pertinent conclusions. Your critical reflection functions as a self-assessment of the writing you have done throughout the quarter. Here, you use your own writing as evidence of how you have performed the course outcomes. An outstanding critical reflection clearly indicates which items in the portfolio demonstrate the course outcomes, and makes a compelling argument for how they do so. The critical reflection displays thorough and thoughtful awareness of your own writing. You will incorporate evidence from the course outcomes, assignments, self-assessments, peer responses, and teacher responses. Strategically (and briefly) quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing passages from your own work (both strong and weak samples) is a great way to make your argument concrete.

Writing the Final Reflection*

If there are aspects of the class and of your experience throughout the quarter that you would like to discuss but haven’t been able to thus far, you might conclude by reflecting on those aspects. Remember, in order for these comments to serve an evaluative function, you should talk about them in relation to the course outcomes or the evaluation rubric. Like any conclusion, there are a number of avenues you can take. Here are some options, but feel free to invent your own:

*Note : In the “Homepage Template,” this section appears as the concluding paragraph of your critical reflection cover letter; in “Template by Outcome and Template by Paper” online portfolio form, this section appears as your “Final Reflection.”

Throughout the quarter, this course has taught concepts of argumentation, development and support, organization, rhetorical choice/awareness, and conventions usage. However, the criteria for selecting essays can be highly subjective. Here are some questions and criteria for judging the qualities of an effective final portfolio paper. Consider these questions for selecting short and major papers:

Look at your assignment sheet, look over your draft and instructor and peer comments, and consider whether your paper is on task. Satisfying the assignment also includes using conventional formatting and mechanics, and meeting the required length.

Submitting your Final Portfolio

Please submit your portfolio’s URL to the Portfolio Assignment page on Canvas by midnight on [date]. If you would like me to make comments on your final portfolio, please let me know by choosing to include the “comment” feature in your online portfolio.

Before sending me the URL, make sure that all of your work is accounted for. A portfolio that does not include all of the below mentioned work will be considered “Incomplete” and will earn a grade of 0.0-0.9.

Justifying Portfolios: How to “Sell” Them to Your Students

Initially, students might complain mightily about not receiving any grades until the end of the quarter. Nonetheless, once they understand it is to their advantage to suspend grades until they have had an opportunity to revise on the basis of the entire course, they relax and do the work. Most research has found that students complete more substantial revisions for a portfolio than they do on individually graded assignments. Once students receive detailed comments from their peers and from you, they are often relieved to set aside grade worries.

To reiterate, here are some points that you can make for your students (repeatedly throughout the quarter) that will help them adjust to and understand the importance of using portfolios in 131:

• By using the portfolio, you are grading students on what they can do at the end of the quarter rather than the beginning.
• By not worrying about grades on each assignment, students will have a chance to relax and take risks that they may not otherwise take. This will inevitably result in better writing.
• Your students WILL receive feedback from you, so they will have some idea about the areas that need improvement. Personal and insightful comments from you can be even more indicative of how they’re doing than a letter or number grade.
• Portfolios allow for equitable grading across all sections of English 131 offered by the entire University. As noted earlier, we will be holding a portfolio “norming” session at the end of the first quarter to allow instructors to grade consistently across 131 sections. You can, for example, see how other instructors would grade a portfolio you were considering to be very strong. If you give your students grades throughout the quarter, and it turns out that you were a much more generous grader than your fellow instructors and feel that you should modify your grades accordingly, your students will be very upset.

If you “sell” the portfolio system at the beginning of the quarter, many students do get to feel comfortable with the system and can focus on their process and progress rather than their grades. In her 2002 study of 131 student evaluations (see Chapter 11), Amy Vidali found that only 2.5% of students felt that the lack of grades during the quarter detracted from their experiences in 131. If you do have anxious students, there are a few ways you can address them, beyond the four points above:

• Since revision is a major component of the outcomes, and therefore a major part of their final grade, there is no way you will be able to predict their grade until they turn in their portfolios.
• You can give them information about their participation grade, and even a specific participation grade if they so insist.
• You can tell students that if you feel they are in danger of earning less than a 2.0 by the final week of the add/drop period (if, for example, they have missed a large number of classes and work), you will let them know in time for them to drop the class.

Further Reading

Carroll, Lee Ann. Rehearsing New Roles: How College Students Develop As Writers . Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2002.

Reynolds, Nedra, and Richard Aaron Rice. Portfolio Teaching: A Guide for Instructors . Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006.

Yancey, Kathleen Blake, and Irwin Weiser. Situating Portfolios: Four Perspectives . Logan: Utah State UP, 1997.

2023 English 131 Instructors Manual Copyright © 2022 by kersch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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ePortfolios

What are canvas eportfolios.

The Canvas ePortfolio tool allows you to electronically collect and reflect upon various “artifacts.” Artifacts may include essays, photos from study abroad experiences, scans of papers with teacher comments, PowerPoint presentations, Web sites, digital video projects, audio recordings—basically anything you've created as part of your university learning experience.The Canvas E-Portfolio tool provides interfaces for easy uploading of artifacts and password-protected Web publishing of your entire portfolio. You may also request confidential viewer feedback on each portfolio section (only the portfolio author may view the comments). Your instructor may create a custom portfolio template for your class or may ask you to design your own portfolio. Your instructor portfolio assignment will help you to know the expectations for your specific assignment. For more information on the Portfolio tool generally, see the Canvas Portfolio Guide .

Before you Create Your E-Portfolio:

• Begin by logging into Canvas and opening your ePortfolio assignment. This will be your guide for understanding your instructor's expectations.
• Follow the ePortfolio instruction steps below.

How to Create a Canvas ePortfolio:

1. Go to the Canvas homepage and click Account on the purple bar on the left side of your screen.

2. Select ePortfolios .

3. Click  Create an ePortfolio, which is on the right side of the screen.

6. Now you are ready to create pages!

How to Create ePortfolio Pages:

• Once you have created and saved all of your pages, you are ready to start adding content!

How to Add Content to ePortfolio Pages:

• The Rich Text Content [1] function lets you enter text directly on your page and edit as you go. This is the default way to enter content. This will likely your reflective text for the portfolio.
• The HTML/Embedded Content [2] option will allow you to link to media or include media such as videos within your portfolio. You may want to use this function to enhance the appearance of your site or contribute relevant content to your work.
• The Course Submission [3] option will allow you to embed any work submitted via Canvas. This is useful for directing your instructor to drafts of your work from your current or previous quarters.
• Image/File Upload [4] will let you attach work not submitted via Canvas (for example, additional essay drafts or peer reviews).
• You may add content boxes by selecting from options in the Add Content menu. IMPORTANT TO NOTE: Each time you add content, you must add a new content box. So, if you have several files to upload, you will need to add a new content box each time. The same rule applies for all of the content types.

• After you've finished editing, you are ready to share!

How to Share the ePortfolio:

If you have not made your ePortfolio public, you will need to share your ePortfolio , especially with your instructor. Sharing a private ePortfolio link will give others access to viewing your ePortfolio without having to log into Canvas.

How to access your ePortfolio in the future:

• HOW TO ACCESS ePORTFOLIOS: Go back to the portfolio dashboard by clicking link below the Edit this page button. Right-click on the Copy this link option and submit to instructor on Canvas eportfolio assignment page. This lets the instructor make sure she/he can view all submissions. You do not have to submit again after the first time. Your instructor will see your updated content, and will not review it until the due date.
• Try to view your own submissions. You will likely get an error message. Try clicking "View original submission." Your portfolio should now display.

Sample Portfolios

Below are some examples of what the pages of a finished Canvas ePortfolio will look like:

Additional Resources

• EWP Learning Outcomes

And here are some successful sample Canvas ePortfolios from former EWP 100-level Composition students:

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The Writing Portfolio – Some Advice

Lexi shares some lessons she has learned from completing the Writing Portfolio this term.

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Spring term contains many milestones for sophomores. There is, of course, declaring your major , but there is also submitting your Writing Portfolio. It is a chance to show how much you have learned about college-level writing in your first 6(ish) terms at Carleton.

The requirements for the Writing Portfolio change slightly on a year-to-year basis; as a result, the tips offered here are very broad and generalizable. I aim to de-mystify the Writing Portfolio process from a student perspective, so that you all may feel better prepared to begin expanding your writing portfolio as soon as you get to Carleton!

Put your best effort into your writing in any course.

I know, I know, this doesn’t have to be said. Carls are extremely passionate, and it shows in the kind of advanced work they submit, no matter what it is. However, sometimes you get used to a certain rhythm and certain assignments, like discussion posts, final term essays, and lab reports, fall to the wayside a little. Instead of being an opportunity to showcase all that you know, including writing mechanics and textbook knowledge, writing assignments can feel like just another checkbox to mark off.

That’s why, in my opinion, it is really important to keep up the effort to actively grow as a writer as you move through Carleton. Try new things under the guidance of your professors! Examine ideas you have never thought about before! Learn a new style here and there! When you can keep the energy up while sitting down to write, you’ll avoid some of the effort later needed to compile a working set of documents for the Writing Portfolio.

Go to the Writing Center.

I am not saying this just because I work there ! Well, maybe a little, but there is a great reason to. Writing Consultants are trained to work with students on writing. We don’t necessarily know everything there is to know about the Writing Portfolio itself (though we did have training on that specifically!), but we can help you clarify your thesis or organize your paragraphs logically.

Throughout your time at Carleton, not just the first six terms, us Writing Consultants can be helpful resources to become better writers overall. That could definitely benefit you for the Writing Portfolio! At the very least, we can sit beside you and help you track which paper qualifies as which writing skill. We are very good listeners and note-takers, I promise.

Save all of your “final” drafts in an organized and efficient manner.

Imagine this:

It is Saturday afternoon and all is quiet on 3rd Libe. I am sitting by the windows, staring out onto Lyman Lakes and some squirrels are scampering by. Suddenly, as I open my third (and perhaps final) paper that I have chosen for my Writing Portfolio, I see yellow highlighted marks. Upon further examination, I see that I had written a note to myself in the Google Docs comments, “Check this out later.” 

It was no longer quiet on 3rd Libe. My sigh of anguish scared the squirrels outside.

If you are anything like me, you too will find it bothersome that the paper you submitted to your professor is not the same exact one saved on your computer. To remedy this, I highly recommend making all of your edits, submitting the paper, then downloading a “final” draft and labeling it as such.

There are quotes around “final” because writing is a process! There is truly no such thing as being “finished” with a piece of writing, and that is reflected in the Writing Portfolio.

Keep the prompts too!

Maybe this is just me, but is anybody else’s computer files a wasteland with no discernable beginning or end? Trying to find the prompts for the various papers that I’ve chosen for my portfolio turned out to be a detective hunt. I was in my email, searching up my professor’s names, tearing apart my dorm room looking for all of these prompts!

It doesn’t have to be that difficult, if you only plan ahead and save your essay prompts in an appropriate space. That being said, don’t be afraid of reaching out to classmates or professors if you really truly cannot find the prompt of a paper you would like to submit.

Don’t stress too much.

Hey now, I’m looking at you! The person reading this. Yes, you. You don’t need to stress about this. You know why? Because the intention behind the Writing Portfolio is not to figure out ways to fail you out of Carleton, but rather to check in on the second-years as a whole and see how writing skills are coming along. The goal is to identify students who may need some extra support before they mosey on up to junior year.

Writing is such an important skill, you see, that Carleton wants to make sure we’re all on the same page (haha!) before sending us on our way to upper-level major classes. 

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How to Write a Portfolio Introduction

Last Updated: January 30, 2023 References

This article was co-authored by Shannon O'Brien, MA, EdM . Shannon O'Brien is the Founder and Principal Advisor of Whole U. (a career and life strategy consultancy based in Boston, MA). Through advising, workshops and e-learning Whole U. empowers people to pursue their life's work and live a balanced, purposeful life. Shannon has been ranked as the #1 Career Coach and #1 Life Coach in Boston, MA by Yelp reviewers. She has been featured on Boston.com, Boldfacers, and the UR Business Network. She received a Master's of Technology, Innovation, & Education from Harvard University. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 366,130 times.

The introduction to your portfolio is a great way to tell your readers who you are and briefly explain what you'll be talking about. If you're using your portfolio to attract customers, it's important to give a few examples of professional accomplishments and make your introduction stand out by adding a couple of personal details. If you're writing an educational portfolio, summarize your main talking points and explain what makes you stand out. Don't forget to edit your introduction once you're finished so it looks professional!

Template for a Portfolio Introduction

Writing an Introduction for a Professional Portfolio

• You might say, “I’m Kelly Smith, and I design websites for small businesses. While I’m based in Austin, Texas, I help build websites for people all over the world.”

• You might say something like, “Over the past five years as a photographer, I've taken pictures for graduation ceremonies, weddings, and birth announcements."
• Choose experiences where you were in charge of the project, or that had a positive impact on you and your company.

• Keep the personal details short and to the point, as their main purpose is to add a little life to your introduction.
• You could mention you have three children, love cooking, or learned to code when you were seven years old.

• Avoid using slang in your introduction to make it more presentable.
• Write in the first person for a more personal feel.
• Keeping your introduction conversational will make people more likely to feel like they can reach out to you.

• Wear professional clothing related to your job, and smile in the picture to look friendly and welcoming.
• Make sure the picture isn’t blurry or too dark.

• Check the layout of your introduction if it's online, making sure all of the wording and any pictures show up normally.

Writing an Introduction for an Educational Portfolio

• For example, you could say, “My name is Steve Johnson, and my portfolio is a representation of all that I've learned and accomplished as a science and engineering student."
• This should only be 1-3 sentences. You can write in the first person to engage your reader the most.

• Avoid listing everything you’ll be talking about in the portfolio. Instead, you can use a table of contents for this.
• Include any major themes you'll be talking about, or the main message of your portfolio.

• You might write that your student experience is unique because you’ve spent 3 years working in a lab researching cancer, or your poetry is published in several different magazines across the country.
• Include this near the end of your introduction to keep it fresh in the reader's mind.

• Roughly 2-3 paragraphs is an ideal introduction length.

• If your teacher didn’t give you any guidelines, ask them if there are specific things they want you to include.

• Reading your introduction out loud can help you find any mistakes you might have missed.

Expert Q&A

• Use fonts that are readable and professional-looking, such as Times New Roman. Thanks Helpful 2 Not Helpful 0
• Mention any awards or special accolades you've received, if desired. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• Talk about a few of your strengths to make yourself stand out. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://skillcrush.com/2013/03/25/the-five-essential-ingredients-of-a-great-online-portfolio/
• ↑ Shannon O'Brien, MA, EdM. Life & Career Coach. Expert Interview. 24 September 2021.
• ↑ https://www.format.com/magazine/resources/photography/online-portfolio-about-page-step-by-step-guide
• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrBRfKvLQhY#t=40s
• ↑ https://www.theclassroom.com/write-introduction-educational-portfolio-8681477.html
• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrBRfKvLQhY
• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5TN2wvWCKA

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Project Assistant Intern for Ecosystem & Biodiversity Portfolio

Beijing, CHINA

Type of Contract :

Starting date :.

24-Jun-2024

Application Deadline :

17-Jun-24 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

Duration of initial contract :, time left :, languages required :.

English   Chinese  

Expected Duration of Assignment :

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Under the guidance and direct supervision of the Programme & Risk Management Analyst of Pillar II, the Intern will provide effective support and have opportunities as below:

a) support the financial and operational management of the Ecosystem and Biodiversity (EBD) Portfolio in Quantum system/UNALL platform, through which the intern may have opportunities to advance in project management, including project finance, project documentation, as well as logistics and administration ,

b) support quality assurance and risk management of projects under EBD portfolio, through which the intern will have opportunities to learn more about project risk management, UNDP social and environmental screening standards, cross-sector coordination, as well as project monitoring & evaluation .

C) support biodiversity project formulation and pipelines . This will involve research into key environmental and biodiversity issues and development of reports and publications to increase UNDP advocacy and visibility. Through these tasks the intern will be able to improve his/her skills in strategic planning, research, technical documentation, partnership engagement, and media exposure .

D) The intern might have opportunities for field visits and stakeholder engagement meetings and activities, including government agencies, private sector, and academia.

E)  The intern will also have opportunities to learn about UNDP’s role in supporting China ’s  landscape conservation practices, legal mainstreaming, and public awareness  in the areas of ecosystem and environment as below:

wildlife protection; protected areas and national parks; marine conservation; wetland and migratory birds conservation; invasive alien species control; agrobiodiversity; land degradation.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide effective support in Quantum system or UNALL platform to facilitate the financial and operational management of EBD Portfolio, including:
• Support Recruitment of consultants
• Monitor the progress of milestone deliverables of direct recruitment by UNDP Country Office and provide management support as needed
• Raise payment/financial request
• Facilitate travel process
• Track liquidation/advance payment progress
• Provide support on quality assurance and risk management including:
• Monitor & update the risk status of the projects in system
• Collect the Project Progress Reports of on-going projects, do the first review and find out information gaps for the report and contact PMO for gap filling
• Support Mid-term Review & Terminal Evaluation
• Daily contact with implementing partners (IPs), international and national consultants for catch up on the program progress
• Provide support on pipeline formulation
• Assist in the formulation of pipeline projects in GEF VIII
• Assist in translation/interpretation of related documents
• Assist in identifying relevant partnerships from the private sector and civil society
• Help logistic arrangement of related meetings with partners, provide translation and take meeting minutes, etc.
• Provide additional support as necessary.

Competencies

• Skills for solution-oriented contacting with related different stakeholders;
• Demonstrated multitasking ability through accurate priority-setting as well as timely and active progress-checking with the supervisor, team members, colleagues, and stakeholders;
• Teamwork spirit and sense of responsibility;
• Computer proficiency, especially related to professional office software packages (Microsoft Office).

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Experience

·       Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent in English, Finance management and environmental science or related fields

·       Intern experience in other organizations/UN agencies preferred

Language and Skills

• Good communication skills both Chinese and English, excellent communication (both oral and written) and partnership building skills with multi-dimension partners, people skill to solve conflicts and negotiation skills.

REQUIRED DOCUMENTS

Please submit your application with below documents in  one PDF . For those who apply from UNDP Jobs, please note that the system  will not accept  the uploading of more than one document so please merge or scan all your documents into one prior to uploading.

a)     CV and letter of motivation

b)     Copy of school transcript

c)     Indicate if you will be financially supported by any institution or programme, such as a university, government, foundation or scholarship programme, and the financial amount.

*Candidate who didn’t submit required documentation will not be further considered.

INTERNSHIP CONDITIONS

• Interns must provide proof of enrolment in health insurance plan and medical certificate of good health prior to starting the internship. Any cost arising from accidents and illness incurred during an internship assignment will be the responsibility of the intern.
• The stipend will be paid monthly. Interns will have 1.5 days of leave per month.
• Interns are responsible for obtaining necessary visas and arranging travel to and from the duty station where the internship will be performed; Cost and arrangement for travel, visas, passports, accommodations and living expenses are the responsibility of the nominating institution, related institution or government, which may provide the required financial assistance to its students; or the intern.
• Interns must not apply for or be appointed to a position that should be encumbered by a staff number during the period of their internship. Interns are expected to fulfil the terms of their internships. Therefore, the internship must not be foreshortened for the purposes of allowing an intern to apply for a position.
• Interns are not staff members and may not represent UNDP in any official capacity.

Note: UNDP reserves the right to select one or more candidates from this vacancy announcement.  We may also retain applications and consider candidates applying to this post for other similar positions with UNDP at the same grade level and with similar job description, experience and educational requirements.

Scam warning

The United Nations does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process. Should you receive a solicitation for the payment of a fee, please disregard it. Furthermore, please note that emblems, logos, names and addresses are easily copied and reproduced. Therefore, you are advised to apply particular care when submitting personal information on the web.