Checklist for your Senior Seminar Course Portfolio
(check course calendar for due date)

 

Senior Seminar (English 300) with Professor Bob Broad

Title Page

Give your portfolio a title that is amusing, puzzling, illuminating, or jazzy (or all of those).  Also on your title page include all vital information such as: your name, the name of your professor, the name and number of the course, the date on which you will submit the portfolio, and whatever else seems important or useful for the Title Page.  

 

Table of Contents (TOC)

Provide a simple Table of Contents (TOC) that lists the major sections of your portfolio as well as any important sub-sections.  For example, your TOC should list which journal entries are included (and which you skipped, if any) and should let the reader know what sorts of process documentation are included with your main research project.  

 

[Note: If you are making an electronic portfolio, the Title Page and Table of Contents should make up your "home page."]

 

Preface or Reflective Letter

The Preface or Reflective Letter (addressed to readers of your portfolio) can serve either/any of two or more important and distinct purposes.  First, it gives you the opportunity to reflect on what you have learned and written in this course.  I firmly believe that some of the best learning you may do in our course can happen as you look over your coursework in its entirety and work to articulate what you learned, where you struggled, surprises you encountered, precious resources you unearthed, and other interesting observations about your work.  Second, the Preface or Reflective Letter is a powerful rhetorical performance by which you, the author, shape your readers' experience of the texts that make up your portfolio.  The most obvious way to think about this act of guiding and shaping is to think in terms of trying to get your professor to give you the grade you think you've earned or to get a prospective employer to offer you a job, and those are legitimate goals for the Preface/Letter.  Other goals might be to highlight the work you like best, provide information not evident in the portfolio contents, provoke your readers to critical reflection and insight, or add to the perspectives offered in the rest of the portfolio contents.  

 

Aim for between 500 and 1000 words (2-4 pages typed and double-spaced) for your Portfolio Preface. 

 

Response Journal

Include your entire Response Journal.  Label each entry clearly with your name, the date of composition, what you are responding to in that entry, and a title for the entry.  If you have revised or added journal entries since my last reading/evaluation, alert me to those changes so I can give them my attention.  The easiest way to mark new/revised journal material is to put new material in italics. 

 

Major Research Project

Below are the items that should be included for your major Senior Seminar research project.  

  • The final draft, formatted according to guidelines laid out in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 
  • At least one substantial earlier draft of your project (the earliest previous draft is most useful; one subsequent draft might also be helpful)
  • All documentation of your writing processes.  Your options include any or all of these:  a process memo, all peer response you received, and all professor response you received
  • (for more details, please see the web page How to Document Your Writing Process)

 

Retrofolio (“Portfolio for the English Major at Illinois State University”)

If you need a refresher on the purpose and/or nature of the Introduction/Preface to your Retrofolio, please re-read the “Assignment: Introduction/Preface to Your ‘Retrofolio,’” which we read and discussed early in the semester. 

 

Alongside your Senior Seminar course portfolio (discussed above), please submit a separate Retrofolio.  I recommend that you use a 3-ring binder or an “accordion” folder with dividers for both your Senior Seminar course portfolio and your Retrofolio.

 

One copy of your Retrofolio Preface will, of course, appear as the first item in your Retrofolio.  Please make a second copy of this Retrofolio Preface and include it as an item in your Senior Seminar Course Portfolio.  Along with the final draft of your Retrofolio Preface, please include evidence of your writing processes (peer response, professor’s response, revision, etc.) for this document.