I’ve used portfolios in my final assignment for a long time. They are a good way for students to review the semester and figure out what they’ve learned. Through revising their work, they revisit and process lessons about writing, about their topics, and about themselves. I encourage students to be creative with these, and always have a lot of fun grading them. Often I find little gifts of insight, and from time to time quote my students in assignments or in lessons (with their kind permission). I have a nice collection of those that former students have allowed me to share.

One of my favorites–artful, tactile formatting.

Since I use Compass to teach, this final project is the only assignment I collect on paper, and I really love the tactile parts of them. Often students put a lot of care into personalizing these.

Another nice handmade booklet.

This semester, inspired by my colleague, Tom Macnamara, I am going to give students a choice of presenting their work digitally, instead of on paper. I started this blog partly as an example of possibilities. For example, they can use publish.illinois.edu to set up their own blogs. They can use separate pages for each separate part of their portfolio. They can upload media. IMG_1653They can really just play around with this tool and see what the possibilities are.

Carefully printed and laid out.

This one is nicely organized.