ePortfolio Deadline Looms

April 15 is the deadline. By 11:59 PM I'll need you to simply email me a link to your ePortfolio site. Simply go to that site in your browser, and copy and paste the URL into the email you send me. I'll confirm receipt throughout the day on Friday.

Editing Help

Here's a document that you can work through on your own as you revise. It's a set of focused editing tips that get at a variety of topics, from weeding out unnecessary words to revising for emphasis.

Also, here's a link to a document I've shared with you before, one that walks through typical issues with the profile and how to fix them!

Reflective Writing: Some Contrasting Examples

Group, I've got two example ePortfolios, just to show you differences in how reflective writing is done. I do change the questions, and I know that ours are pretty specific this time around--so please, don't misinterpret the examples you see. Notice instead the amount of THINKING SPECIFICALLY that is on display by the writers! And what, ultimately, gets communicated:

• Cassie's ePortfolio
• Bruce's ePortfolio

General MLA-Style Formatting

Straight from the official Modern Language Association (MLA) handbook, here's a guide to formatting essays. Only the profile needs a Work Cited (and it will say just that, "Work," since you only have one source for that project). 

Revising the Narrative: Structure

This is a slideshow we'll work with in class today to help you refine the structure of your Project #1's, where you're shaping a story about an object that's important to you.

The ePortfolio Rubric

Here's the rubric I'll use for evaluating what you do. It's not a traditional rubric, since we have no points. But you can see a place I'll check off contract breaks if you earn them. A full A-rating requires A marks in all four categories.

Here's how this works, which should be no surprise if you've been around all term. The ePortfolio largely determines your grade for the course. You can see that it can doom you (if you earn the Unacceptable rating, there's no way to pass). But you can earn up to four contract breaks, too—that's what you see in the second column.

An A rating requires checks in all four categories. If you come up very slightly short with one of the categories, then I tend to look at how well you do with the last project and final—there's a chance to get into that A range, in other words.

If you know you've earned contract breaks already, then be especially cautious. Some of you may need to withdraw already. If you already have four breaks, then it's likely you're not in the best place with any of the projects, so the chance you'll submit a ePortfolio that doesn't earn any contract breaks is low. Also, please note that I haven't logged contract breaks for At-Home Activities yet, since we have more to do. If your percentage is way below 75%, you will probably have a contract break there! 

From Experience, the Most Typical Things That Get Overlooked, Part I

So, as we close in on the ePortfolio deadline, I try to share some common things my students do that can lead to contract breaks . . . Here goes:

1. Coming up radically short on word counts. If you can't meet the word counts for the projects, you might just withdraw from class. That's a big deal breaker, and we've had three months.
2. Forgetting to do MLA-style formatting for papers #1 and #2. 
3. Not realizing that Google Drive doesn't auto-correct the same things that Word does. Seriously read your drafts over. If it helps, read through them backwards, one sentence at a time (this works). Google won't auto-correct a little "i" for instance. In your document, you can use Edit—Find and Replace to fix your "I's," or any other common errors of yours. Just type in an i (with space on either side of it) for Find, and type in a big I for Replace, and you should be good to go. But definitely read the draft—find the obvious typos at least before you make that PDF.  
4. With the profile, focusing a lot on yourself! 
5. Not bothering to really look at punctuation rules surrounding the use of quotation marks. 

If you're gunning for the A, here are a few things that can get you there:

1. Transitions. Remember that activity where we looked at the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next? That's the best thing you can to do improve the flow of the paper and develop its ideas.
2. Variety. We spent time on this too, on varying sentence structures and lengths, making good choices about verbs and details. Your work with details and variety can make your writing stand out from the rest. 
3. Specifics. We've talked about this all term, but the more concrete and detailed (meaningfully and purposefully) you can get, the better your overall ideas will be, and the more likely the reader will truly connect with what you're communicating. 

Today's To-Do List

Here's the plan today:

1. Look at the new blog posts, which will have you reading the OFFICIAL ePORTFOLIO INSTRUCTIONS. You'll find a CHECKLIST, too, which I recommend printing up. It's the ultimate guide to all final project requirements. 
2. The blog posts refer to you BlackBoard, where you'll find a step-by-step walkthrough and ePORTFOLIO TUTORIAL. Use it to make your ePortfolio site. 
3. Work on old project drafts. You had comments from me on the NARRATIVE, and you have a GUIDED REVISION document regarding the PROFILE. 
4. Come talk to me about your project, up in front of the room :)

ePortfolio All-Projects Requirement Checklist

A handy document, in checklist form, that contains all the requirements for final drafts of our three main ePortfolio projects.

Editing Helpers for the Photo Essay as Well as the ePortfolio

As we get moving with polishing our writing, here are some editing helpers for you to work with on your own . . .

But in class we'll work with the following slides to think about editing issues.

Also, here are some tips on what to capitalize in the titles of your photo essay as well as of individual photos.

Comments on the Profile Drafts

With profile rough drafts, I tend to repeat the same comments. That's why I have a document like this one, which you possibly have looked at before, that walks through the issues I tend to see using student draft examples. There's something to be said, anyway, about learning to self-diagnose, so please use the linked file to examine what you have.

I've also put together this document, as an additional approach to working through those common issues. It's in the form of a checklist. 

Please know that I'm always more than happy to comment in-depth on revisions, the idea being that you've already gone in and attempted to develop and polish the piece on your own before asking for me to take another look. That's true for any of the projects. Just e-mail me or bring a hard copy in if you prefer handwritten feedback. If you e-mail me, simply ask me to look at your revised piece. I can go back in Drive and find it. 

Don't re-share it, unless you're going to add a message asking me to look at the revision. If you simply re-share, I won't know what you want—I'll merely get another e-mail telling me you've set up a share. I tend to delete those! Just communicate with me about what you need, that's all :)