Senior Portfolio Project

Senior Portfolio Project

2011

Honors English 12

MAJOR DUE DATES

Introduction

As you end your senior year and your high school experience, you will create a website using the software of your choice (I will be teaching the use of Microsoft Publisher in class). This final portfolio will be a metaphoric representation of your growth as a reader, writer, and thinker throughout your high school career. Your metaphor must be clearly connected to all of the elements of your website and to all of your writings.

Between now and May 5th, we will be working on writing the selections that will appear within your portfolio and on creating the website which will encapsulate your final drafts. As the year progresses, you will be expected to keep up with many smaller due dates. The portfolio requires you to reshape and revise previous pieces of prose and poetry and to create a few new pieces to describe your current self. Reshaping involves a serious shift in focus, point of view, purpose, theme, or another equally significant literary technique. I am not looking just for changes in spelling, grammar, word choice, etc.; this is editing, not revision. Along with your website, which is your final portfolio, you will be submitting a paper folder that contains your rough and original drafts. I will be comparing these drafts with your final drafts in order to assess your growth as a writer. I expect that your final drafts will reflect thoughtful revisions. Failure to reshape your drafts will seriously affect your grade.

For the March due date, you will be submitting one CD that shows the shell of the website you will be using. In other words, that website will contain all the required elements except for the papers themselves.

The following papers will be included in your portfolio:

Dear Reader Letter

This is an opening letter to the viewer of your portfolio and should be written in letter format. You will include a paragraph discussing each of the pieces within your website in the order that they appear. Be sure to mention each piece’s original title in the topic sentence of each paragraph. You will also link the title of each piece to the page on which it appears. I will be giving you a more detailed description of this letter in the future.

At the end of this selection, you should include one final, brief paragraph summing up your thoughts about the portfolio process. At the end of the piece, write a formal closing where you both type and sign your name. This will be the last piece you create for your portfolio.

Metaphor Poem

In class we will read the poem entitled “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes and a few other poems that build around a central, extended metaphor. Using these poems as models, write your own poem that focuses on your life. First, start with a page of brainstorming where you note your successes, failures, and challenges encountered thus far. Next, decide how you might use your experiences or character within an extended metaphor (Hughes uses a set of stairs). Moreover, this metaphor must extend throughout the entire poem. The poem may or may not rhyme. Be aware that rhymes should reinforce meaning, rather than being included just for “rhyming’s sake.” Your poem also must use specific diction, vivid imagery, and a minimum of four additional poetic devices. The final draft must be at least 20 lines.

Values Essay

For this paper, you are to create a new essay that focuses on your values and personal philosophies towards life. This discussion should incorporate who you were as you began your high school career, how you and your principles have developed and changed over that time period, and who you hope to see yourself becoming in the future. Looking through past personal narratives, SOL Pre/Post-tests, and/or college essays may help to give you insight into how your values have changed and evolved. The final draft must be a minimum of two pages.

Literary Analyses (2)

One must be from 9th-11th grades

The other must be from 12th grade

* One of these will be a revision/reshape, and one of these will be a reflection.

Look through your past writings and pull out any and all of the essays of literary analysis that you have written over the course of your English education. From those you are to choose two essays to revise (one from 9th-11th grades and the other from this year) and include within your portfolio. This could be anything from your first character analysis on Doodle from “The Scarlet Ibis” to the essay you wrote this year analyzing some aspect of Hamlet. Just keep in mind again that revision means that you are to make serious structural and stylistic changes to the piece. This essay must also include proper MLA internal citations. If you only used one work for these essays, then a Works Cited page is not necessary. Please see me if you require a copy of a piece of literature from a former year. The final drafts must be a minimum of two pages.

WILD Card Selections (3)

*One of these will be a reflection, and two of these will be revisions/ reshapes.

As a 12th grade honors student, you are required to include three Wild Card selections within your portfolio. All of these pieces should reveal your maturity as a writer. One piece must be from 9th-11th grades; only one piece may be poetry.

Look through the essays and poems that you have written for English or dig through old stories/poems that you may have written outside of school. Pull out all of your favorites. For this assignment, choose any poems or prose pieces to revise or reshape and include within your portfolio. Keep in mind that you may not want to choose a favorite piece to revise; you need to pick ones that could really use some reshaping. Prose pieces must be a minimum of two pages in length, and poems must be a minimum of 20 lines. Longer is fine!

Technical Pieces (2)

There are many different types of technical writing. You will be required to include an academic resume and one other piece of technical writing. The second piece may be a new piece that you create or a revision of a prior piece. We will discuss the various options for your technical piece as we continue the portfolio process.

Website

Your website will consist of at least nine (9) pages. Your first page will be an introductory page where you tell the reader about yourself and explain your overall metaphor. You should have pictures of yourself and things that are important to you on this page. The rest of your pages will include your papers; the order of some of your papers will depend on the year they were written. Others will have their own pages. All graphics, music, color, font, and other aesthetic elements must relate to your metaphor. All elements must be purposeful!

Your pages will be in the following order:

• Home Page
• Metaphor Poem
• Dear Reader
• 9th Grade
• 10th Grade
• 11th Grade
• 12th Grade
• Technical Pieces
• Values Statement

Other Requirements:

• You will be getting instructions in class on how to develop a webpage using Microsoft Publisher- this program is available on all school computers. If you choose to use another program, it is up to you to bring work to do in class on lab days and to find availability with that program on your own time. I must be able to open your work on a school computer!
• Internal hyperlinks must be present on each page, leading to every other page. Please have links on the side and at the bottom of each page.
• All hyperlinks must be labeled descriptively.
• Save all elements (pictures, files, web pages, music, video) in ONE folder; otherwise, they may not all function together. Name this folder

“Last name_portfolio”.

• Be sure to save final web pages as “web pages.” More information to come on this.
• Burn your portfolio folder to ONE CD to submit in March and TWO different CDs to submit in May. (This means you need 3 CDs total- CDRs or CDRWs.) In May one will be used by me; the other will be used for your presentations in class and during our Senior Portfolio Showcase with all English 12 classes.
• Students are expected to meet all deadlines. As with all major assignments, NO late work will be accepted. If you are absent on either due date, it is still your responsibility to submit your work during your class period.
• Please have your flash drive with you at all times!