As part of Kathleen Blake Yancey’s definition of a portfolio in “Portfolio, Electronic, and the Links Between,” she states that a portfolio should showcase a “collection of work” (130). My portfolio would collect the three major projects that I have completed for this class, the reflections for each, and some of the blog posts that I have completed.
A portfolio should have a “selection of work” which includes “reflective letters, annotations on individual texts, and other contextualizing texts such as a table of contents” (Yancey 130). If given the opportunity, I would probably choose all of my major projects to put into the portfolio, and I would choose one of my first blog posts, a couple posts from the middle of the semester, and one or two posts from the end of the semester to showcase in the portfolio, because I feel that incorporating blog posts from various points in the semester would highlight my development as a writer for this class. For the reflective portion, I would compile all my work into one document, with a table of contents that I would hopefully be able to link to the different sections of the portfolio. I would also include a reflection of my work on the progression I have made throughout the projects and blog posts. I would explain some of the challenges of creating the projects and posts, such as not having the proper equipment or knowledge to create the quality of remix and transmedia project that I would have liked, as well as the challenge of having to stay in a certain word limit for the wiki project.
My portfolio would showcase diversity in subject matter, as my wiki project and blog posts are meant for entertainment, while my remix and transmedia project were meant to spread a specific message to a specific audience. It would also highlight diversity in terms of what Yancey calls “its ability to show how different our students are” (Yancey 130), as each project that people in this class have done is very unique to them and their personal experiences.
This portfolio would mainly communicate my growth as a writer and in my understanding of the class, as well as my unique perspective on my assignments and the message I hoped that each assignment would share with its intended audience. It will evaluate this growth and the ways in which I effectively communicated, or else failed to communicate, each text’s intended message.
Hypertext will be necessary to my portfolio, specifically because most of my project assignments are only available online, like my Genial.ly quiz for the remix project and Instagram, Spotify playlist, and WordPress site for the transmedia project. I will need to hyperlink these projects within their sections in the portfolio, and I also hope to hyperlink each section of my portfolio with a table of contents.
This portfolio will reflect a semester’s worth of progress particularly through the reflective portions, but I hope it is obvious by comparing projects such as my early blog posts and later blog posts that I have grown as a writer and now better understand what I am supposed to do for assignments such as the blogs. I feel like I have matured as a student throughout the semester and am better prepared for digital communication, and I hope that this is reflected in the quality of my work.
Word Count: 563
Works Cited:
Yancey, Kathleen Blake. “Portfolio, Electronic, and the Links Between.” Computers and Composition, 1996, p. 129-133.