English Discipline Portfolio Description

The English Discipline Portfolio (EDP) is designed so that the English discipline can assess its major.  As part of that assessment measure, English requires all majors to submit a writing portfolio at the end of their St. Norbert College career.  

Saving Essays for the Portfolio

As soon as you determine that you will be an English major, begin to save the final drafts of the essays and assignments from each of your English courses to a folder on your M: drive labeled English Portfolio.  For ease of recovery, create a subfolder for each of your courses labeled with the course number, such as English 150, English 305, or English 489.

Self-Reflective Essay

Compose a self-reflective essay with detailed information about your experience as an English major. Overall, your essay should address how well the English discipline at St. Norbert College provided you with an intellectually, personally and spiritually challenging educational environment.

More specifically, consider how well the English discipline helped you to:

• explore the broad canvas of English and American literature, recognizing it as an evolving rather than static body of work;
• develop the essential skills of critical inquiry through academic writing;
• identify and understand the theoretical debates that frame the study of literature;
• use that literary theory in your thinking and writing across the English curriculum;
• learn a foreign language and/or the history of the English language;
• explore creative writing;
• serve the College and outside communities through academic organizations, extra-curricular service projects, etc.

Finally, please consider your answers to the following questions in the conclusion of your essay:

• What are the greatest strengths of the English major?
• How might we improve the English major?
• What are the greatest strengths of your portfolio?
• What areas of your writing would you like to improve?

As long as you address these issues in your essay, you can be as creative as you wish.

List of English Courses at St. Norbert College

To give the English discipline a quick overview of your English career at the College, provide a list of all the English classes you’ve taken at St. Norbert College.  (If you are a transfer student or have taken English classes at other institutions, please create a separate category to list those courses.)

For this list, provide the following information (arranged from first year to senior-level courses):

• Course number and title
• Instructor
• List of all writing assignments done

Portfolio Essays

Select one essay or writing assignment from each of 10 St. Norbert College English courses to include in your portfolio.  If you took more than 10 English courses, choose what you consider to be the 10 most representative course assignments of your history as an English major.  If you are a transfer student, you may include up to two essays from English courses from other institutions.  

The written assignments or essays you include may range from

• personal/reflective essays that ask you to reflect personally on the literature you study, to
• critical essays that ask you to analyze literature without secondary research sources, to
• research essays that require you to integrate secondary sources in support of your own critical thesis, to 
• a short story or a collection of 3-5 poems from a creative writing course.  

(Of course, not all students will have material for each of the above categories.)

Arrange your essays in the portfolio in order by course number, from the 100-level to the 400-level. At the beginning of each essay or creative piece, include a brief description of the assignment.  Descriptions should include: class, instructor, date of assignment, and a brief (1-3 sentence) overview of the assignment (purpose, audience, etc.)

Organization and Format of the English Portfolio

Arrange your portfolio in the following order:

1. Self-reflective essay
2. List of courses taken 
3. Portfolio essays (arranged from 100-400-level classes)

When you are ready to submit your portfolio at the end of your English career at St. Norbert College, please have it bound at the College copy center or elsewhere.  If you can, save your portfolio as a single Word (.doc) or Rich Text Format (.rtf) file, lastnameengmajport.doc, and send it to Laurie MacDiarmid as an email attachment.

Portfolios are usually due during finals week of the Spring semester.

Questions or concerns about the portfolio may be addressed to Laurie MacDiarmid, laurie.macdiarmid@snc.edu, 403-3498.  Her office is Boyle 352.

English

Phone: (920) 403-3119
Fax: (920) 403-1086
E-mail: english@snc.edu