Reading and Writing Portfolio

As I get sucked into the day-to-day of teaching, I can lose sight of the big picture–and so can my students. That’s why taking time to breathe, reflect, and dream are so important for me to do with my students. Finding activities that help us pause makes sure we focus on what’s most important. A reading and writing portfolio is good for this because the students can see their own growth, we can connect over it, and I’m ready for parent-family conferences all in one go. More frequently used in elementary schools, reading and writing portfolios are powerful for any high school ELA classroom–assuming you avoid the classic pitfalls.

Fail-Proofing Portfolios

Reading and writing portfolios have been in use for a long time. I’m pretty sure I stapled some things together for my teachers when I was in high school. That was just it, though. It became an exercise in rewarding kids who could keep track of their papers.

Instead, I design fail-proof portfolios using the following criteria.

1. Create a flood of opportunities. Because the four moves every literacy lesson plan needs for soaring reading growth happen everyday, there is not a kid who is too absent to do the portfolio. They may not have as many artifacts to choose from, but that is valuable information for them to reflect on too. It can really help them see how much school they’ve missed.
2. Use a consistent, accessible submission routine. No more lost artifacts! For some classrooms, this is electronic submission. You can also use notebooks or binders that students leave in the room. This works better in my sheltered class for English Learners, or other groups that may need support in executive functioning.
3. Make submission mandatory. I have grade what students have done on the due date, whether or not they are done. When time’s up, time’s up. Done is better than perfect, and not finishing is an excellent thing to notice and discuss in a portfolio.

Using a Reading and Writing Inventory To Gather Artifacts

With the fail-proof criteria in place, I collect the cornerstone work of my class, which may or may not be the same as yours. Choose what you know you can collect in light of the above criteria.

• Timed writing sample. We do a timed writing almost everyday, so everyone has at least one to choose.
• Extended writing project. This is typically done as culminating project to practice a longer writing process. Again, even if students don’t finish, they can discuss what they did do and what they want to do differently next time in order to finish.
• Close reading samples. Typically, these are annotations on short literature and nonfiction texts. These can be done online, collected the day they are done, or kept in each student’s classroom binder or notebook.
  • Independent reading logs. You can read more about how I collect and monitor independent reading in the post “How Freed Reading Turned My Underperforming Freshpersons into Honors-Ready Juniors.” Again, not reading (or not reading much) is still data.

Asking Good Reflective Questions

The book that really got me starting with joyful reading and writing portfolios is Maja Wilson’s Reimagining Writing Assessment.

Wilson’s major premise is that having students tell the story of writing whatever they wrote is a much richer way to inform assessment. It gets beyond applying simple grades to holistic work that is inherently multi-faceted and contextual. Essentially, her questions that she suggests have you ask students about the work from start to finish, how it emerged and developed over time, and finally what students would do if they had more time to work on the piece. This brings closure to the assignment, given the fact that it is now “done” (in that there is no more time to work on it as any piece of writing is truly never done).

I ask very similar questions, which she intended for extended writing projects, to reading and timed writing as well, because learning is a narrative act. Additionally, I ask students to mark where in the work they meet our standards, because I think that is a key act of reflection, to see one’s work clearly.

Finally, in later grading periods, I ask about growth. I have students compare their work with that in earlier portfolios. This tells yet another story–between learning tasks rather than just within. It also makes space for the fact that the learning may or may not be linear, as any story may be told.

Making Joyful Reading and Writing Project Videos

There are loads of ways to submit portfolio artifacts and answers to reflective questions. Simple online or handwritten responses will do, and I’ve even done a fairly complex website version, but the most joyful way is through a conversation. There’s nothing like the back-and-forth of an actual dialogue.

Students sit beside me with a slide presentation based on a template I give them. If they have physical papers, they can put just the answers to questions on the presentation and show physical papers to me or upload pictures of physical papers.

Depending on your numbers and timeline, you may not be able to meet with each student individually. That’s where videos come in.

Because students typically dislike being on camera, have them make a screenshare video of their presentation. They can do this using whatever screen services are available in your district. Many districts have an LMS that allows this (for example, Canvas), but I have also used Screencastify and Flip (formerly Flipgrid).

Grading a Reading and Writing Portfolio Assessment

While most teachers agree that developing metacognitive skills in students is important, how to grade those skills can be daunting. I focus on three areas.

• Mastery. I require students to mark evidence of meeting the standards in their artifacts. This helps us ground our work in the priorities, ensuring that we all stay focused on them. It also gives students something specific to reflect about so I don’t have to grade a bunch of vague portfolios. If the students realize they can’t mark something as mastered, I let them change the artifacts and add it. This is a more pragmatic way to invite revision, especially for “one and done” student writers and readers.
• Interpretation. This is where the storytelling happens. Students must tell the story of each artifact in a way that helps me understand them better–their experiences, history, and context both during the class and before it started. The point of portfolios is not compliance; it is connection. This is where I learn valuable insights about my students that aren’t stated in their actual work. I learn about them as learners and people, which helps me make deep and meaningful changes to future unit plans.
• Reflection. There is a clear distinction for me between interpretation and reflection. Interpretation is the how and why of the work. Reflection is the what next. When students reflect, they celebrate their strengths, and I build future lessons that help them to showcase these strengths in the next unit. They also acknowledge opportunities for growth and explain which ones they want to seize in the next grading period. Again, knowing this helps me customize my unit planning going forward. In later grading periods, I can ask students to look back on these goals–are they seeing any progress?

A Joyful Reading and Writing Portfolio

With a fail-proof, repeatable reading and writing portfolio in mind, I created a resource that will help you connect with students, plan future units, teach metacognition, and have meaningful parent-teacher conferences. This resource can be used at the end of each grading period. Some of the guesswork is taken out of grading metacognition with some simple single-point rubrics. This resource contains a student portfolio (fillable PDF or fillable Google slides) and rubrics for grading all or some of the portfolio pieces (fillable PDF or Google sheets that can be imported to an LMS like Canvas). Enjoy! 

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