At the end of the course, each student turned in a portfolio consisting of their four best papers and a portfolio memo describing his or her work throughout the term.

"Writing About Literature" Portfolio Memo Information

As your syllabus states, your portfolio memo should address these sorts of issues:

• The changes you made to your papers, and why;
• The strengths and weaknesses of your papers and of the portfolio as a whole;
• Your reasons for including these four papers in the portfolio;
• An overall assessment of your writing and your work in this course (please refer to the grading contract).

Below are a series of writing prompts meant to help you think through the above issues. Don't try to answer all of these questions in your memo; I'm including them here just to help you start thinking about what you might write. As you write about your papers and your participation in this course, feel free to refer to (and even quote from) the many reflective memos you wrote throughout the term.

Assessment of your portfolio:

• What is your best paper and why? Your least favorite paper and why?
• Do you see any patterns throughout your portfolio - themes or ideas that seem to recur throughout your papers?
• If someone were to analyze your portfolio, what might they say about it?
• What would be a good title for your portfolio?
• What kinds of advice did you receive for each paper? What kinds of advice did you follow and why? What kinds of advice did you choose not to follow and why?
• Did you follow through on the things you wrote on your "plans for revision" memos? Why or why not?
• If you had more time to revise one (or all) of your papers, what would you do differently?
• Did your writing change this semester? If so, what changed and why and how? If not, is there anything you want to change about your writing in the future?

Assessment of your work in this class:

• What did you do especially well in this class?
• What could you have done better this term?
• What grade description (as outlined on the contract) best describes your work this term and why?