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Portfolio Learning
First Edition
by Barbara L. Cambridge and Anne C. Williams
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Portfolio Learning invites you to learn from producing, collecting, analyzing, and assessing writing. You will write in both informal and formal ways about your own ideas and the ideas of others and receive responses as you write and revise your papers.
Assumptions of this textbook
This book offers you a special approach to learning to write. Portfolio learning is based on assumptions that you might like to know as you start your course.
1. You are in control of topics and sources.
This textbook assumes that you will learn by choosing topics and sources that are significant to you. You will practice many techniques to help you discover what you want to write about and what sources might be useful.
2. You need time to discover your ideas and synthesize them with the ideas of others. In this process you collaborate with your teacher and your classmates.
This book assumes that you learn from taking time to discover your own ideas, to place them in the context of other people's thinking, and to generate new ideas from the synthesis of the two. Techniques for engaging with other writers and readers are an integral part of this textbook.
In this portfolio class, your relationship to your teacher and to your classmates may be different from that in other classes you've taken in high school or college. Your instructor functions as a "guide by your side." If past English teachers have dictated your topics, formats, and grades, you will probably be glad for a knowledgeable, empathetic teacher who will help you decide on and assess your work throughout the course. In addition, your classmates and you become guides for one another. Decisions for choosing topics, revising drafts, and selecting portfolio contents will be easier because you collaborate with other writers in your class.
3. Making mistakes can be productive.
Portfolio learning assumes that you will learn more and be better able to represent your learning if you have many chances to write and revise. You may do some writing that ultimately does not work, for example, ideas that never get developed, paragraphs that don't fit with the others in a paper, or entire drafts that are best left unfinished. In a portfolio, you get to reflect on why something did not work and to show in other pieces of writing what you learned from the problem. In portfolio learning, you can fail without penalty because the failure becomes positive when you use it to improve. In portfolio learning, you can apply new insights to former writing any time during the term.
4. A body of work represents your learning better than a single piece of writing does.
Your portfolio composed of multiple kinds of writing will show more about you as a writer and learner than any one piece of writing can do. Your portfolio will contain writing that you did as you decided on a topic, as you tried different perspectives on the topic, and as you revised your paper. Even better than a stack of finished papers, your portfolio will demonstrate your writing process, your own assessment of that process, and the products that result from it.
5. Your writing in this course is part of a lifetime of writing.
You build in this course on your previous writing experience and look ahead to writing in the future. This awareness of your developing literacy is emphasized in composing a literacy autobiography, revising continuously, and creating a portfolio. The portfolio represents past and current learning and can be modified and expanded as you learn in the future. You undoubtedly hear often about lifelong learning: portfolio learning supports that idea in process and format.
Organization of this textbook
The table of contents reveals an organization that imposes a sequence on writing, only because books are typically sequential. The writing process is often not so orderly, however, because writers may write ideas in notes, compose a draft of a paper, scout for other people's ideas on the subject, drop certain paragraphs and revise others, reorganize the main sections, and revise again. In other words, as a writer you may need help with revising both before and after you want advice about organization.
Your teacher and your class, therefore, may choose to use chapters in this book out of their sequential order. You may skip a chapter and return to it later. You may jump ahead to one section of a later chapter even when you are working your way through early chapters. Feel free to browse in the book, to alight on a helpful section, and then to return to earlier sections. Going through the book systematically makes sense, but so does using various chapters and sections as the subjects they treat come up in your class.
Number and kinds of papers suggested in this textbook
In this book you will meet Justin Cooper who produced drafts of five papers, three of which he completed for his portfolio. This example is not a model to follow: it is one example of one way that your class might proceed.
Although your class may do the same kinds of writing that Justin does, your instructor may have other assignments for you to complete. You may do more research-based papers, or you may write a formal argument. You may write more essays, or a letter to the editor may be included in your assignments. The book is written so that your class has flexibility if you want it in number and kinds of papers, but you may also write five papers very similar to those that Justin does. Portfolio Learning allows for flexibility in assignments to meet the needs of your class and its context.
Use of this textbook with other books
Your class may use this textbook with other books. For example, you may want a handbook that explains in detail points of grammar, usage, punctuation, and style. If your instructor wants you to read more pieces of writing by professional authors to explore topics, perspectives, or stylistic options, you may have a book of readings to accompany Portfolio Learning. If your school emphasizes writing argument, you may have a book on logic and kinds of argument. In other words, you may use Portfolio Learning along with other books or with other materials that fit the context of your course.
On the other hand, your teacher may rely little on other textbooks and prefer to rely on the writing of students in your class to illustrate points about purpose, audience, focus, organization, and grammar. This textbook supports such an approach by using an extended student example throughout the book and multiple shorter examples within chapters.
Portfolio Learning is designed for flexibility. Partnered with other texts or with student writing from your class, it supports multiple course designs.
Collaborative Production of Portfolio Learning
This textbook was produced through the cooperation of many people. From the patient encouragement of our first editor, Nancy Perry; through the systematic, persistent, and supportive assistance of our editorial guide, Marcia Muth; to the enthusiastic support of our editors, Charlyce Jones Owen, Leah Jewell and Linda Pawelchak, we have benefited from wonderful editorial guidance.
The following reviewers sent us honest, reflective, and helpful comments as we revised and revised this book: Richard Batteiger, Oklahoma State University; Cheryl Forbes, Hobart and William Smith Colleges; Joe Potts, California State University, Long Beach; Jeff Sommers, Miami University, Middleton Campus; and Wendy L. Wright, El Camino Community College.
Our students who have taught us during our entire careers about how to teach and how to learn deserve our sincere thanks. We especially appreciate the students who allowed us to use their work in this book. Our colleagues who have over time collaborated in developing curricula, new teaching practices, and ways to support one another as professionals and as persons are present in this book. Our children, who listened to us and wrote for us during the entire birthing of this book, enrich our professional and personal lives. We thank Andy, Bethany, Darren, and Emily. We are thankful for each other. Collaborating on any extensive project tests empathy, mutual respect, and commitment to the purpose of the project. Our collaboration has strengthened our understanding of our teaching, our writing, and ourselves.
Finally, we are thankful that you will use this book for inspiration and instruction about writing. We would be delighted to hear from you with suggestions about the book, examples of your writing, or alternative ways of dealing with the writing issues in the book. Please send your ideas or pieces of writing to us through our publisher. Your ideas may be the wellspring for the next edition of Portfolio Learning!
Barbara L. Cambridge
Anne C. Williams
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