English 121C, Spring 2012
Vincent Oliveri
The Portfolio and the Cover Letter
The Super-Duper, Really Really Important Stuff
The portfolio allows you to decide what writing assignments you want me to base the majority of your
grade upon. It is worth 70% of your course grade.
This assignment is due in hard copy only. It is due on Tusday, June 5 between 10:30 am and 12:30 pm.
You must bring the portfolio to my office: Padelford B36. If I do not receive your portfolio in my hand
by 12:30 pm on Tuesday, June 5, in my office, your portfolio grade will be 0.0. If you will not be able to
come to my office to drop off your portfolio during that time, please make arrangements with someone
in the class for them to drop your portfolio off for you.
Portfolios submitted electronically or dropped off elsewhere will not be accepted.
Your portfolio must be complete. If any of the required items are missing from your portfolio, it will
receive a 0.0.
What Are the Required Items that Go Into Your Portfolio?
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It must have 2-3 short papers, 1 Critical Service Reflection, and 1 of your major papers. These
will be the papers that the portfolio grade will be based on (along with your cover letter).
It must include the completed rough drafts of all of your short papers and major papers. These
demonstrate that you have completed all of the required writing for the course. Your course
grade is not based on this writing.
You will write a cover letter specifically for your portfolio. (See below for instructions.)
Packaging and Arranging Your Portfolio
Please use a standard folder to hold your portfolio together.
I would like you to your rough drafts on the left side of the folder. On the right side, please include your
cover letter and revisions.
The cover letter should be the first thing I see, so make sure that it’s on top of the stack on the righthand side of your portfolio. It is up to you to decide how you want to arrange the other pieces. Since
you can arrange them in any order you wish, think carefully about what effects you want your
arrangement to produce. Remember: this is a rhetorical situation, and I am your audience!
Experiment with different arrangements and ask yourself: what effects are created by each different
arrangement? How does your arrangement create the image of yourself (as a writer) that you would
like me to see?
Selecting Pieces to Revise for the Portfolio
When you’re selecting pieces for the portfolio, you have to keep a few things in mind. First, I will be
evaluating your work based on how well it demonstrates the course outcomes (not just if it
English 121C, Spring 2012
Vincent Oliveri
demonstrates them). You should be thinking about which of your pieces is most effective at performing
those outcomes.
When it comes time to select specific pieces for revision, it may help you to go through some or all of
these questions:
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What pieces do I need to complete because the rough draft did not reach the minimum required
length?
What have you written that you felt good about?
Which piece are you most excited about revising?
Which piece has gotten the best response from me or from your peers?
Which piece was the most difficult?
Which piece are you most proud of?
Which piece do you dread working on again?
Which pieces make you feel as though you said everything you had to say?
As you begin rereading a particular piece, do changes occur to you?
How is the portfolio graded?
The portfolio is treated as a single piece of writing—in other words, rather than assigning each piece an
individual grade and then averaging them to come up with a final grade, all of the writing is considered
one single piece and receives one grade.
However, some scholars who have studied how teachers grade portfolios argue that teachers have a
good sense of what grade they will give after reading the first piece in a portfolio, which, for you, would
be the cover letter. I can honestly say that this is true for me also: generally, I pretty much know what
the grade for the entire portfolio will be based upon the cover letter, and I use the rest of the
portfolio to narrow the range down to a specific grade. This means that you should take very seriously
the decisions you make about what you do with your cover letter and how you arrange your pieces.
Your cover letter and revised work in your portfolio will be evaluated according to the course outcomes.
You were given a copy of these with the course syllabus.
Grammar: Proofread or have someone else do it for you!
Would you submit work for publication, or a grade, that was full of grammar or spelling errors? How
does that make you look (i.e., what is the rhetorical effect)? I prefer that you proofread all of your work,
including your cover letter, for spelling, grammar, and punctuation, or have someone do it for you.
Getting your portfolios back
NOTE: I do not make comments on portfolios. If you do wish to get your portfolio back, be aware that it
won’t have any comments from me.
If you would like your portfolio back, you can come by my office next quarter (Fall 2012) to pick up your
portfolio. Any unclaimed portfolios will be destroyed at the end of Fall quarter, 2012.
English 121C, Spring 2012
Vincent Oliveri
The Cover Letter
Your cover letter serves as an introduction to your portfolio. It is a reflection on your own writing and
revisions, and it is an argument about the effectiveness of your portfolio as a whole. But it is also a
formal letter, written to me.
In your cover letter, I would like you to assess the work that you have produced for this class,
incorporating the language of the course outcomes to do so. You are not required to touch upon every
bullet point of every outcome; one of the challenges you will face when writing your cover letter is
determining which aspects of the outcomes to discuss and which to leave out. You will want to create
an argument that shows that your writing demonstrates that you can effectively perform each of the
four outcomes.
To do this, use a comparison and contrast strategy that compares the rough drafts of each assignment
with their revisions as support for your claims. This will allow you to discuss revision (outcome 4) as well
as the other 3. Provide rationales for your revisions that discuss the effectiveness of your writing with
respect to your audience and your purposes, like we’ve done in class with other assignments. You
should comment on how those changes better demonstrate the course outcomes and also how those
changes create effects that you desire, along with explanations about why you desire those effects.
As with any work that you do with text, be specific with your descriptions of your writing. You certainly
know by now that I favor precision and specificity when it comes to text work.
When thinking about the cover letter, remember what Reynolds and Rice say about cover letters: “it’s
not enough for writers to say they have learned something; they must prove it. A reflective
introduction to a portfolio is a claim that must be supported by the artifacts in the portfolio.”1 In other
words, not only must the work you select for your portfolio accurately demonstrate what you say about
yourself in your cover letter, but you must also use the writing in your portfolio as evidence in your
cover letter.
1
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Reynolds, Nedra and Rich Rice, Portfolio Teaching: A Guide for Instructors, 2 ed. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s,
2006): 40.
English 121C, Spring 2012
Vincent Oliveri
Tips for writing the cover letter:
1. Assess yourself honestly, addressing your strengths as well as your weaknesses.
2. When discussing revision, I appreciate discussions of what feedback (from your peers or from myself)
that you decided to act upon, why you decided to act upon it, and how your writing demonstrates
that you did so.
3. Use the language of the outcomes in your letters—and address how your work demonstrates said
outcome(s) by including a summary or a quote from your work. Use what we’ve done in class with
quoting and summaries to do this!
4. Be as specific as possible.
5. Always be sure that you are not just describing what your papers are doing—your letter should
describe how your papers do what they do, using the specific details found in your writing, and why.
6. It’s not just about arguing IF you have the outcome, but also EVALUATE how well you did the
outcome.
7. You are not required to hit upon every single bullet point of every single outcome, but you should
be sure to discuss all of the outcomes.
What NOT to do in your cover letter:
1. Do not tell me what grade you think you deserve.
2. Do not tell me how awful I am or how awful the course is.
3. Do not tell me how wonderful you think I am or how wonderful the course is. I will be passing out
course evals before the quarter ends and you will get the chance to make comments and
suggestions about the course, and me, at that time.