Your Final Portfolio & Reflective Essay

• A writing portfolio is a collection of REVISED writing assignments that are representative of a student's work throughout an entire semester. 
  
  
  Your Google Drive shared folder will count as your final portfolio for this course. As discussed at the beginning of the semester, your final portfolio is worth 40% of your final course grade. Bear in mind that I will grade your final portfolio as a whole--not as the average of different project grades. Also, incomplete portfolios may not receive a passing grade. 
  
  
  YOUR FINAL PORTFOLIO IS DUE BY MIDNIGHT ON TBA. 

  
  
  Below is an up-to-date list of all the files that you should have in your shared Google Drive folder by the final portfolio deadline. I have also included the correct file names. You should also visit the UTRGV Writing Center (ESTAC 3.119) prior to the deadline for assistance with any grammar-related issues in any of your assignments.
    

  ASSIGNMENT	NAME IN GOOGLE DRIVE
  Creative Nonfiction	Nonfiction-YourFullName
  Short Fiction	Fiction-YourFullName
  Dramatic Dialogue	Drama-YourFullName
  Free Verse Poetry	Poetry-YourFullName
  Reflective Essay	Reflection-YourFullName

  
  
  ON YOUR REFLECTIVE ESSAY

  The reflective essay is a short essay that will help me gauge your overall development as a writer this semester. Your essay will offer me a way of reading the work in your final portfolio and should help me understand what you have learned from all all of the assignments, readings, activities, and discussions this semester.
  
  To get your reflective essay started, you'll want to create a Google Doc in your Google Drive shared folder. Name the file like this: Reflection-YourFullName.
  
  

  YOUR REFLECTIVE ESSAY IS DUE WITH YOUR FINAL PORTFOLIO.

  
  Your reflective essay should be: 1) 3-5 pages in length, 2) double-spaced, and 3) included in your portfolio by the final portfolio deadline. Also, since I will be the primary audience for your reflective essay, you should address me directly (Ex. Dr. Moreira, I just want to let you know that I enjoyed/had trouble with the course because...).

  
  

  Click HERE for a sample reflective essay from a previous course.

  
  

  Finally, to help you compose your reflective essay, here are ten questions to ask yourself about your overall ENGL 3351 experience and your development as a creative writer this semester:

  
  

  1. What is your “ENGL 3351” story? Where did you begin? What happened along the way? Where have you ended up?
  2. Check out the course syllabus again. What are the goals for this class? Which goals do you feel you’ve accomplished this semester?
  3. What were the challenges you faced this semester? How did you deal with those challenges?
  4. What do you see in all the work you’ve completed for this class? Discuss each assignment individually, if you wish. What was difficult? What was easy? How has all the work in this class helped you develop as a writer?
  5. What do you know about yourself as a writer now that you didn’t know before the start of this class?
  6. What strategies have you learned to use to make your writing more effective?  What were the specific things that helped you learn in this class?
  7. What were some of the important questions for you this semester, and how and why did you go about finding answers for these questions?
  8. In terms of your development as a writer, what do you still need to work out in your mind to reach your goals?
  9. What do you still want to know more about? After all of our readings, discussions, writing assignments, etc. in class, what do you plan on investigating further after this class is over?
  10. Overall, what have you learned in this class? What have you learned about creative writing, about feedback and revision, and about yourself? Do you consider yourself a more confident writer now? If so, how and why?