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The University of Arkansas at Monticello is a small open admissions university in southeast Arkansas with a developing writing center and a new Professional Writing major and minor.
ePortfolios Defined
• Collects selected works from the archive of an individual or group.
• Presumes development, often tracing it through specific works.
• Documents diversity and individuality and communicatesthis to others.
• Includes reflection from the composer and shares what’s valuable to those who shaped the ePortfolio (Yancey, 1996).
“Participating in the daily routine of a writing center exposes writing consultants to the demands of a professional workplace. When they are on duty, they commonly work without supervision, have to put the team before themselves, and hold each other accountable for a shared level of professionalism. In the process, they learn valuable personal lessons that are better encountered in the writing center than in a career where their livelihood is at stake.”
Kathleen Welsch“Shaping Careers in the Writing Center” (2008)
“Learning and teaching in the Thirdspace [has] helped me to understand the importance of professional development that encourages teachers to provide spaces within their classrooms for acknowledging and building upon students’ individual funds of knowledge and out-of-school literacies. In this way, we can empower them to become more active and socially engaged citizens and create opportunities for them to be collaborators and leaders.”
Susi Bostock
“Thirdspace: A Perspective on Professional Development” (2012)
Writing Center Professionalization
SchoolCareer
“In the electronic portfolio, the role of the expert is being widened, and expertise is being shared. It is a truism in computers and composition that students are often the experts and faculty often the students. It is likewise a defining feature of portfolios that they include reflection, the site where students demonstrate their expertise about their own work, where they assess their processes, their goals, their texts.”
Kathleen Blake Yancey“The Electronic Portfolio: Shifting Paradigms” (1996)
“Portfolios represent a different way of construing the nature of curriculum and instruction. They refocus the course from teacher to student. They call for maturity and independence on the students’ part and they make any course become a matter of student learning rather than teacher instruction.”
Alan C. Purves“Electronic Portfolios” (1996)
“By ‘going public’ with electronic portfolios, our students transformed their school-bound ideas of audience, fostered their own sense of community extending beyond the classroom, and renegotiated the traditional terms of ownership of student writing.”
Beverly C. Wall & Robert F. Peltier
“Going Public with Electronic Portfolios: Audience, Community, and the Terms of Student Ownership” (1996)
“It’s not just about yourself growing as a professional. You’re growing with a group of people and you kind of intertwine with each other and I think that leads to the overall professionalism of the writing center…holding true to the values of what it means to be a consultant is really important.”
Falon Lantrip
UAM CWC consultant
“This is a professional job, I have a goal and a duty here, but then there’s also this feeling of, I’m still kind of like part of the school and the students…[it’s] a school-type environment where I’m still learning, but I still do feel like I have these responsibilities that make me feel more professional.”
Sarah Sayyar
UAM CWC consultant
“I hadn’t been a part of the writing center, I wouldn’t have fully have grasped the importance of crafting it [the ePortfolio]…This helps you to experiment with how you want to develop yourself professionally, without being thrown to the wolves. It gives you that solid foundation without risking a whole lot. I mean, there’s still risk, but there’s still that safe base.”
J.T. Henderson
UAM CWC consultant
Sample ePortfolio Training Module
for Writing Center Consultants
Week 1
Write: What does it mean to be
“ professional” as a consultant? Give an
example of when you felt that way.
Discuss: What kinds of things go on in
your center/what kind of work do you
do in your center beyond tutoring?
Make: Find 3 quotes that are important
to you. Then, list 3 things on your
“ bucket list.” Finally, search for 3
images that you’re drawn to. Make a
short PowerPoint that uses them all and
explains the connections.
Week 3
Write: Scan your social media and other
online profiles. What story are you
telling about yourself?
Discuss: Look at sample ePortfolios and
discuss their visual design, and how this
creates identities.
Make: Go on a color scavenger hunt,
either IRL with your camera, or on the
web. Use an app like paletton.com to
develop a color scheme. Then, have a
coworker take some headshots and
action shots of you for your ePortfolio.
Week 2
Write: Brainstorm key things you value as
a consultant, fellow student, and fellow
writer.
Discuss: Discuss the mission/vision of
your writing center and how it connects
to the list you just made.
Make: Make a list of content (papers,
honors, internships, etc.) you’d like to
highlight in your ePortfolio. Then, using
an app like balsamiq.com create a
wireframe. Decide where the content will
go and how it will connect.
Week 4
Write: Brainstorm ideas for controlling
metaphors.
Discuss: Discuss potential audiences for
ePortfolios. Think of what they might
make of your controlling metaphor and
how you might help them understand it.
Make: Make an account with a free
web-based platform. Create a splash
page that introduces your controlling
metaphor, and lay out initial design
choices.
Week 5
Write: Pair up and look at a colleague’s
ePortfolio in process. Critically “ read” it,
both for usability and for the professional
identity it creates. Write your
interpretations and share them.
Discuss: Work with your colleagues to
develop a space where the ePortfolios
can be showcased, IRL and virtually.
Make: Continue working on ePortfolios.
Finalize coherent design and place your
chosen content in meaningful ways.
Week 6
Write: Reflect on what story your
finished ePortfolio tells about you.
Discuss: Workshop and polish
ePortfolios. Finalize showcase plans.
Make: Introduce the ePortfolio project
for someone else. Make sure it
highlights the purpose, audience, and
context of the project, and offers some
specific how-tos and resources. Compile
the most useful info into an instructional
handout to accompany the showcase.
Pair the sample module with the suggested readings to help
your consultants create ePortfolios that represent their growth
as professionals, both inside and outside the writing center.
Thank you, and feel free to share your ePortfolio creations!
−Julie & Leigh
Julie [email protected]@aristotlejulep
Leigh [email protected]