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Task 2: Showing your Process
One of the things that you are often tasked with in a portfolio is to show your work-in-progress or to show your writing process. While on the surface, it seems like you would only need to provide links to the different stages of your writing, what your professor really wants to see is your description and explanation of the choices that you make as a writer.
These process assignments can take many shapes and forms from an author's note or writer's letter to an annotated infographic or a video auto-ethnography. While there are a number of ways that a writer can show her process, here are a few DOs and DON'Ts to keep in mind when choosing a way:
SHOW WHAT YOU MEAN!
If you are writing about how you worked really hard on changing the first sentence to grab reader's interest, then show the reader what you mean by including a screenshot of the change or quoting from your own work.
If you are writing about how your peer group's feedback was the most meaningful to you, then take a picture of those comments from your daybook and comment on what they said.
NO MORE DOWNLOADS!
INCLUDE ALL ASPECTS!
Even though it is tempting to use the "download" feature for all of your documents, it really isn't easier for your reader. In fact, it forces your reader to download countless files to his or her computer.
Instead of using the download option, create a new page or subpage that houses these different drafts. If you include a screenshot or image of your drafts and/or use scribd, it will give you the ability to comment and point to specific places in your work.
When you go to show the process of your paper, be sure to include all aspects: the good, the bad, and the ugly. No one writes perfectly from the beginning--even professional writers have to write really, really bad stuff before they can come up with anything good.
The freshest-smelling daisies come from the stinkiest manure--be proud of how far your writing can come! Don't be afraid to show the manure and show what you learned from it!
DON'T ASSUME ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR READER!
When making a final portfolio, students often think of the audience as the instructor for the class since he is the one who assesses the work. However, with an e-portfolio, the audience is opened up to anyone who comes to the site. Therefore, the writer/designer cannot assume that the reader knows what he is writing about.
Imagine that your audience is someone outside of your class whether that be a parent, other members of the faculty, or a future UWRT student; be sure to explain what your different parts of the assignment and process are since they are unfamilar with what happened in your particular classroom.
CONSIDER THE BIGGER PICTURE!
Even if it doesn't always seem like it, your instructor has a plan to get you from point A to point B. During the drafting of the assignment, your class activities are developed to get you thinking about potential changes in your writing and possible directions for your process.
Think back through what you did and discussed in class--how could these "big picture" ideas and concepts factor into your writing process? How did what you're doing in the course affect what you're doing in your writing?
JUST KNOW
IT NEVER ENDS!
Always keep in mind that no writing is ever complete. Jacques Derrida explains the ephemerality of writing as "all these texts are the interminable preface to another text that one day I would like to have the force to write or the epigraph of one I would never have the audacity to write."
His words are especially poignant in relation to texts that we develop online since they are constantly being changed and edited. Know that all of your writing is a work-in-progress and that no piece of writing is ever perfect because its readers and its writer changes every moment.