Revised Guide for Departmental Portfolios


Note well that advisors will not clear students to register for the next semester unless advisors receive acknowledgement that advisees have submitted their self assessment and writing sample from the previous semester. Please get your materials to the chairperson by the end of the month.



Purpose of Portfolios
To complete the English major at St. Vincent, you must assemble a portfolio of written work and self assessments. This portfolio enables you and the department to gauge your maturation as a student and thinker. This portfolio will contain self assessments with accompanying writing samples from each semester during which you were enrolled as an English Major. In the first semester of your senior year, you will complete this portfolio as a requirement of your Senior Project course.

Content of the Portfolio:
Vision Statement: During the first semester that you are an English major, write a two-page essay that states the reasons you became an English major and the goals you hope to achieve. Refer to this Vision Statement in future self assessments.

For each semester that you are an English major, you must submit to the department chair the following documents:

Self Assessment: In 1-2 pages, your self assessment should respond to the following questions:
What were your goals for the previous semester? Did you meet them? Why or why not?
What did you learn during the previous semester about literature, about being an English major, about life, and about yourself--who you are and how you work?
What are your goals for the current semester and what’s your plan for attaining them?
How is the accompanying essay representative of your work in the previous semester or otherwise significant?

Writing Sample: this must be a graded, marked essay written for a class that you had taken the previous semester, preferably an English course. Ultimately, your portfolio must include at least one essay from each of the following categories:
An unresearched analysis of a primary literary text (i.e., a poem, narrative, drama, or literary essay)
An essay of literary criticism that shows awareness of or directly applies literary theory
A research project or research essay that uses a variety of secondary sources in the discipline—if you are in the Literature or Secondary Education concentration, you should submit your Senior Project
If you have a concentration in Creative or Professional Writing, you should include your Senior Project.

Submission of Documents
Self Assessments and Writing Samples for spring semesters are due before the Extended Weekend break in October of the following semester. Documents pertaining to fall semesters must be submitted before Spring Break in the following Spring Semester. When you submit documents to the department chair, the chair will give you an acknowledgment that you must then give to your advisor in order to be cleared to register for classes in the following semester.

Departmental Goals
As you prepare your semesterly self assessments, consider your progress at achieving the following goals of the Saint Vincent College English Department:

To write essays, in a variety of discourse modes, that reflect a mastery of the Six Principles of Good Writing;
To classify and critically read primary literary texts;
To situate an individual literary work in literary and cultural history;
To understand and apply literary theory;
To prepare, compose, and responsibly document a literary research paper;
To connect one's reading of literature to one's perception of the world, seeing oneself and others in light of the conflicts, concepts, characters, and motifs created in literary works.