In this Introduction, I’ll ask you to address each of the following prompts one by one, writing no more than 500 words in response to each one:

1. Who were you as a writer at the beginning of the course? Who are you as a writer now? It might be the same, and that’s fine. Don’t BS me. Honest assessment of changes in your writing habits and processes.
2. How is your skill with argument right now?
3. How is your skill with evidence selection and analysis right now?
4. How is your skill with revision right now?
5. In what ways have you gone above and beyond this quarter? Bonus modules? A bunch of badges? Extra OH or writing center visits? Something else? (I have a badge for full attendence and I completed some bonus module.)
6. What else do you want me to know about your journey in the course and what you’ll carry forward?

In addition to these max-500 word responses, you can use up to 1000 words across the Portfolio to discuss other aspects of the course and your performance, and to help make an argument about your success in the course.

Your Final Portfolio Introduction, as the prompt says, “evaluates how you did in the class and analyzes all of your writing contained in the portfolio”. So, this additional 1000 words may include the following:

• Your analysis of the advancement of your writing through papers, participation, engagement,
• and the revision process in all its stages, including peer editing (with specific evidence foryour evaluation taken from your own writing and the feedback you have received).
• Your reasons for making the choices you made, and what you may have done differently;
• What you think you accomplished and what may need more work.
• Your responses to the class texts and how these sources informed your own work and ideas.
• Your answer to this: How did these assignments prepare you for life and work beyond this course?”

TIPS FOR THE FINAL PORTFOLIO INTRODUCTION:

• The best Portfolio Introductions are honest, searching, and deep. They use the introduction as a space not just to DISCUSS the skills that the student wants to show off, but to DEMONSTRATE those skills by writing the introduction well.
• If you want to make the claim that you’ve picked up a skill (say, awareness of audience), how can you prove that with evidence? Well, the evidence will probably be your own work. Quote it! Then spend time patiently analyzing it and showing the reader how it proves your claim.
• One writing tip that you’ll hear throughout your life is “show, don’t tell.” That means that I am not going to take you at your word if you claim that you’re good at something: if you claim that you visited the writing center, if you claim that you cared about this course. You need to SHOW me– prove it! Provide evidence and assume a skeptical but friendly reader.