For years, my English Language Arts students have assembled portfolios. I’d give them a manila folder to decorate at the beginning of the school year, designate a special portfolio bin in the classroom, and have students add to their portfolios throughout the year. For years, I’ve not been happy with the process, realizing the kids weren’t actually learning from the process—a process my Arkansas English Language Arts Standards require and I’m assuming many other states require.

This year, I decided to tackle electronic portfolios. I wanted students to learn from the process, to reflect on what and how they had learned. I introduced the project at the beginning of the last nine weeks and gave students the entire quarter to create the portfolio.  Using inquiry-based learning, I created a wiki page to pose questions, point students to resources, and encourage them to find their own answers and solutions for creating the portfolio. Then, rather than give them step-by-step directions for creating the portfolio, I chunked the project into small deadlines and guided and supported them through the process as they asked questions, experimented with different tools, and struggled with strategies for organizing the portfolios.

Throughout the first half of the quarter, I devoted a bit of time each week to in-class discussions of the project. For each discussion, I posed a guiding question and allowed students to discuss. Below are the questions followed by the class consensus for each:
•    What is the purpose of our portfolios?
- To evidence our progress toward the NETS for Students and the Arkansas English Language Arts Standards.
- To showcase our work and achievements for scholarship and college applications.
•    What are artifacts?
- The digital examples of our work: images, video, audio, documents, slideshows, links to online content we’ve created.
•    What are reflections?
- Our genuine explanation of the context of the artifact, what and how we learned from creating the artifact, what standards the artifact addresses, future learning goals.
•    How do we organize the portfolios?
-    In a way that makes sense and that makes navigation easy.
•    How do we personalize the portfolios?
-    Create and employ a metaphor (through the design and through text) for our learning.
•    What tools can we use to create the portfolios?
-    Our blogs (WordPress and Edublogs.org), a wiki (PBwiki), a website (Moonfruit or FreeWebs), or any combination of these.
•    How should we evaluate the portfolios?
- Work in small groups to create a rubric, which we’ll use to self-assess our work.

I was amazed at the results: students created websites, new blogs, and combinations of the two. They weren’t just stuffing papers in a manila folder: they were thinking critically and creatively, problem-solving, reflecting.  Check out their work:
•    Drew ‘s portfolio created at Moonfruit
•    Amy’s portfolio created at Moonfruit
•    Elizabeth’s portfolio created with Moonfruit and Edublogs
•    Grant’s portfolio created with FreeWebs
•    Audry’s portfolio created with Edublogs
•    Class wiki showing complete list of all portfolios

On our class wiki, you can find the supporting resources we created: Standards/Artifacts Checklist, Overall Portfolio Contents Checklist, Self-Assessment Checklist.

Next year, skip the manila folders and head straight to your keyboard. Your students will thank you.

Lisa Huff
Batesville High School
English 11 and AP English Language & Composition
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