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Your Teaching Portfolio (course portfolio) for "Teaching Composition" (Eng. 402)

Professor Bob Broad

 

[Please note:  for loads of good ideas about design and contents of teaching portfolios, please see this web site maintained by ISU's Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology:  http://www.teachtech.ilstu.edu/resources/teachTopics/portteach.php ]

 

First, a few words of encouragement and inspiration from one of your predecessors:

At the beginning of the semester, the idea of creating a portfolio that would include so many documents and so much documentation of those documents was a bit daunting. And in many ways, creating this portfolio was a daunting process. But now that I hold the finished product, I can say that it was also an immensely rewarding process. I am confident that I am a better teacher of composition because of the thinking, writing, reading, and reflecting that went into the creation of this portfolio. I will teach first-year composition on my own next semester after co-teaching this semester. As I stand at the beginning of my life as a composition teacher, it is comforting, encouraging, and challenging to have this body of work to support my teaching and scholarship. (Student in Eng. 402, "Teaching Composition," fall 2007)

  • 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 is included with your main research project.  

 

[Note: If you are making an electronic portfolio, the Title Page and Table of Contents should comprise your e-portfolio's home page.]

  • Preface or Reflective Letter

The Preface or Introductory/Reflective Letter (addressed to the reader[s] 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 compiling and composing the portfolio. Some of the best learning you may do can happen as you look over your portfolio in its entirety and strive to articulate what you learned, where you struggled, surprises you encountered, precious resources you unearthed, where you will focus your pedagogical energies in the future, and other interesting observations about your teaching. 

 

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 reader(s) to give you a teaching job or a teaching award, and that is a legitimate goal for the Preface/Letter.  Other goals might be to highlight the work you like best, show what you have learned, 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 750 and 1000 words (3-4 pages typed and double-spaced) for your Portfolio Preface or Introductory/Reflective Letter. 

 

Click here to read one student's reflections on the value he found in writing the reflective introduction to his course portfolio.

  • Curriculum Vitae (C.V.)

An account of your relevant professional experiences, including degrees earned, degrees in progress, teaching experience, teaching awards, publications, conference presentations, and references.  For one example, follow this link to Bob Broad's CV. 

  • Teaching Philosophy or Teaching Statement (approximately 500 words)
     

  • Review of one book or several articles from the list of "recommended books" or "recommended journals" listed on our Course Readings web page.  Please review text(s) you have not read before.  You must get approval from the professor of the book or articles you will review.  You will provide both a brief (5 to 7 minutes) oral and (one- to two-page) written review of the book or articles you read.  (Approximately 1000 words.) 
     

  • Letters from others to you discussing their observations of your teaching, and letters from you to others discussing your observations of their teaching
     

  • One Teaching Project (plans, handouts, assignments, activities, etc.) from your "Composition as Critical Inquiry" (Eng. 101) class

  • Three of your written responses to your students' drafts

  • One evaluation (including advisory grade) by you of a student's project
     

  • Response Journal

Include your entire Response Journal for Eng. 402 (follow the link to Bob Broad's "Guide for Using Response Journals").  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 (and you are welcome to do so), alert me to those changes so I can give them my attention.  One useful way to alert me is to put new material in italics. 

  • Rationale and other selected materials for your Innovative/ Distinctive/ Ideal First-Year Composition (FYC) Course

This will be the center-piece of your Eng. 402 teaching portfolio.  Below are the items you should include.  

  • A course rationale offering substantive statement of need and discussion of the scholarly and pedagogical support for your distinctive, innovative approach to this course.  In this document, you show how you have woven together composition theory and research with your creative and critical vision for teaching composition and your everyday teaching practices.  Quote from and refer to the scholarship of composition as you explain why you designed your innovative FYC course as you did. The most appropriate audience for this course rationale is your future actual or imagined colleagues and/or supervisors and anyone else whom you might need to persuade that your approach is a sound one.  Length:  aim for about 3000 words (about 10 pages double-spaced and typed) making the case for your ideal FYC approach. 
  • Other important selected course materials for your FYC course.  These materials might include a course introduction, syllabus, list of class activities, readings, assignments, criteria for evaluation, and calendar. The most appropriate audience for the syllabus and most of the accompanying materials is the students you would/will teach. 
  • Please do not include any materials that are "stock" items in Eng. 101 at ISU or any other FYC course.  The focus of these materials is the way in which you propose to teach FYC differently. 
  • All substantial earlier drafts of your selected materials and rationale
  • All documentation of your writing processes, including:  a process memo, all peer response, all professor response (for more details, please see the web page How to Document Your Writing Process)

Click here to read one student's account of her experience drafting and revising her Ideal FYC Course rationale and materials. 

  • Option to propose alternative portfolio contents

As you know by now, the main goal of the course "Teaching Composition" is to challenge and invite you to connect practice, research, and theory in the teaching of first-year composition.  If you have a bright idea for a project(s) that will help you meet that goal better than those outlined above, please discuss your ideas with me.  For example, Prof. Cheryl Ball had the idea that ISU graduate students might do some video-taped interviews with scholars in rhetoric and composition here at ISU, following the example of Todd Taylor's "Take 20" (Bedford/St. Martin's 2008). 

  • Class participation and attendance

In addition to the above contents of your Eng. 402 teaching portfolio, your work in the course will be judged in accordance with my policy on class participation and attendance.  Please follow the link, read the policy, and talk with me if you have any questions. 

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