Final Reflection and Portfolio

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This entry was originally posted in "English Composition 2" on May 9, 2023
This is the final project for ENG 1121. I ask students to consider all of their work from the whole semester.
“Reflection” by Paul Saad via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Draft Due: Tuesday, May 16.

Final Reflection and Portfolio (and all work) Due: Tuesday, May 23.

Reflection 

(approx 600-900 words)

We have arrived together at the end of the semester! Now it is time for you to reflect on what you have learned and accomplished over the last few months. You will write a final reflection in which you consider the three questions below. Additionally, if you have revised any previous projects, include a paragraph in the final reflection for each revision, explaining the changes you’ve made and why. This is a graded assignment, worth 10% of your final grade (which we decided at the beginning of the semester).

As you write, consider your purpose and audience for your reflection. I am part of your audience, but I would also love to share your final reflections with future ENG 1121 students. Even if you choose to make your post private, you can imagine your classmates and future ENG 1121 students included in your audience. 

Questions for your reflection:

  1. What have you learned about yourself as a reader, writer, or student this semester? Include specific examples.
  2. How have you changed or developed as a reader, writer, or student this semester? Include specific examples.
  3. Discuss what you learned in this class and how you might transfer this knowledge to other writing tasks, assignments, or situations either in college or in your community. You might also consider how you transferred what you learned in ENG 1101 to the work you did in ENG 1121.

In the course of your reflection, use examples from your own writing from each of the three projects from this semester. Quote passages from your writing that illustrate something about your writing, the assignment, or the genre, and explain why you have included these particular examples of your writing.

Review your work, and brainstorm:

To help generate material for your reflection, look back through all your work (writing, reading, talking, thinking) from the semester. Use any of the following more detailed questions to help you brainstorm ideas for answering those main questions for your reflection:

  • What did you expect to learn in this class? What did you actually learn?
  • What are some notable lessons that have stuck with you after completing certain assignments?
  • How does your work from early in the semester compare to your work now?
  • What changed in your writing (and reading and thinking) as the genres changed or as you became more experienced?
  • What were your assumptions/beliefs about yourself and writing at the beginning of the semester? How have they since changed? What motivated these changes?
  • What techniques or ways of thinking about writing helped you this semester?
  • What was your experience when revising assignments? If you revised any of your assignments, be sure to identify what you changed and reflect on the changes.
  • How did feedback on your writing or other input (eg from me, classmates, tutors, librarians, your personal support team) factor into your work? What additional feedback would have been helpful?
  • This course did not have late work penalties–how did that affect your work and your work habits?
  • What was particularly challenging for you in our course this semester and how did you overcome it (or attempt to)?
  • What advice do you wish someone had given you to help you with this course? What difference would it have made for your learning and your writing?
  • What advice do you have for future ENG 1121 students?
  • What advice do you have for ENG 1121 instructors as they prepare to teach this course again.

How to submit your work

  • Share your Final Reflection and Portfolio by publishing it as a post on our OpenLab site
  • In that post, be sure to link out to the posts for your Project 1, Project 2, and Project 3 so I can find them. If you revise a project for the final portfolio, include a link to both the original and the revised versions. If you revise within the same post, be sure I know to look for a revised version in the same post!
  • You can include your links to your projects in a list at the start of the reflection, or you can link out to each as you write about them in your reflection.
  • You can make your post private if you prefer (see #7 in the Help page on writing a post).
  • Choose the category Final Reflection and Portfolio
  • If you want, you can add an image at the start of your reflection or any other place throughout.
  • If you need help posting your work, please refer to these instructions on how to write a post.
  • If you have not submitted at least two projects, please meet with me before submitting your final reflection and portfolio.

Grading criteria:

Your successful Final Portfolio and Reflection will be a well-organized, easy-to-understand narrative that addresses those three main questions by referring to the work you have done throughout the semester. Use the following grading criteria as a checklist to help you develop your narrative:

  • Content: your reflection has all the components listed above, is thoughtfully written, and includes details and examples that illustrate your experiences in the course by including quotations from, references to, and links to your written work from the projects, posts, and discussions this semester. And does all of this in approximately 600-900 words.
  • Organization:  Your reflection is a narrative that has a central focus, but it does not need to have to have a traditional organization. Be sure to write in paragraphs (not just one long paragraph) and order them logically–not simply a list answering the questions above but instead a narrative about your experience in this course this semester. Your reflection will have a thesis statement, even if it doesn’t come at the end of your first paragraph.
  • Presentation: Your project is written in a way that your audience can understand what you want them to take away from reading your reflection. You use formatting and sentence structure to help your readers make sense of your writing.

Support

Please be sure to talk with me, come to student support hours (office hours), and conference with me to help you with this project. Also, be sure to ask any questions you have in class, as a comment on this post, or via email. We will have time in class to work on brainstorming and drafting.

I know you’re each developed as writers and students this semester, and I look forward to reading your thoughts about your experience.