This document will be the core of your portfolio. You will have the chance to

• Review all your works from 210 (or some other point) on
• See what successes, failures, struggles, satisfactions, etc. you went through as you progressed from class to class and grew as a writer
• Present examples of your development to your readers, linking them in dynamically through hypertext means. One project in particular should be singled out for a case study.

Its general shape and content should be as follows:
 

I. Overview

Express who you are as a writer and literature student; try to share with others your aspirations, inspirations, and reservations--in other words, what excites you about writing, about literature, and about teaching English?  What you want to do (or what you think you must do) with writing and reading as part of your expected career or educational direction in the near future?  (You are encouraged to explore all means of expression--graphics and sound are also possible.)

II. Development

This section should get closer to where you have been and where you are NOW as a writer.  As you look back through your projects, select at least THREE (more if you can) pieces/works that you can discuss as showing some kind of development in your skill. For example, an early essay for 210 might have been poorly organized, and the teacher's comments might have reflected that; or you may have made a lot of sentence errors.  A later project could reflect improvement in organization, and a recent writing might be the best one you can think of as far as correctness, or organization, or effective style. As you discuss these developmental points, you should LINK your discussion with the actual texts via hyper links (in PowerPoint, Word, or another program that will do this). This will show detailed examples of what you are generally talking about in the main autobio document. In effect, your earlier texts will become part of your reflective discourse.

III. Case Study

This will look at ONE major writing project in as much detail as you can muster. If at all possible, select a writing that you have notes and drafts for (or, if you haven't kept these, reconstruct how you went about doing it in as much detail as you can remember). Discuss why you chose the particular topic, how you decided to organize it, what difficulties you encountered, what kind of feedback from others you got (if you can remember), how much revision you had to do before submitting it, and what you and others thought of the final product.  Again, you should LINK to the document itself to show directly what you are talking about in the main discussion. To present as full a picture as possible, this Case Study document should be different from the three used in the Development part.

IV. Conclusion

Use this brief section to tie up your whole autobio as you wish, but focus on at least one question area: In five years, where do you want to be as a writer and student of writing? How do you want to be using written language to achieve your goals in life?

Within each part, the most obvious form of overall organization is chronological (although there are other methods to use as well). You do, however, have the freedom to organize the document in the way you think best and that presents you in the most effective way.

The main document as a whole should be at least 2,000 words, which will allow you plenty of opportunity to explore specific works and talk about them in detail, showing examples passages via hypertext. The number of links depends on how many example documents you use, but I think you should aim for at least two examples from each level in the Development study, and at least four to six in the Case Study. Specific questions and cases will be worked out individually, since everyone varies quite a bit in their experiences.