Title: Process and Portfolios in Writing Instruction
Author: Kent Gill, Editor
Publication Data: 1993 - National Council Teachers of English

Major Points of Interest:

Process and Portfolios in Writing Instruction reviews writing strategies and how to use them effectively with students. The first 8 chapters look at the pieces that fit together to build the jigsaw puzzle we call portfolios. Chapters 9 through 16 examine portfolios and their value. This book gives examples of exemplary practice at the college and high school levels with minimal examination of practice in the elementary grades.

There is a good mix of essays on teachers as writers, and on examining how one relates the practice of writing with one's students. Robert Nistler, in a piece about teaching teachers in a writing workshop, offers this insight: "I have found teachers willing to learn about writing processes, yet reluctant to experience writing themselves."

D.R. Ramsdell's chapter on teaching her college students using her own writing experiences brings home a similarly important point. If teachers aren't writers it makes it difficult to understand how students struggle with editing or revising their work.

In Chapter 3 Life Maps: A Road to Writing the authors examine how they teach narrative writing using a life map. A life map is a personal outline with illustrations and notes about an individual's life. Using this mapping strategy students begin to see their own story unfold. This insight helps them improve the quality of their writing.

Beginning with Chapter 9 the book examines how writing should be assessed, i.e. the portfolio. These chapters show the influence of Donald Graves, Donald Murray, Lucy Calkins, and Nancie Atwell among others. The authors stress the need for a greater emphasis on students' responsiblity for the evaluation of their work. Carole Bertisch sums up the value of portfolios on page 55 with a list of goals for portfolio assessment. These 10 goals listed here, summarize my view of the valuable insight this book offers teachers who help students write well.

My goals for portfolio assessment are as follows:

To encourage student appreciation of good writing - their own and others'.

To have students identify changes in their own work.

To evaluate what is useful for them in class.

To realize that real writers revise and polish and edit.

To review their writing and choose what they think is best.

To understand which pieces of writing lend themselves to revision.

To support each other with positive feedback - to assist not criticize.

To organize their work for submission.

To estimate their own grades realistically after we establish criteria together.

To allow student to take responsibility for their own writing.