Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Contents

The Composition Program accepts portfolios in the fall from September 15 to November 01 and in the spring from February 15 to April 01.

After confirming their eligibility with Dr. Jennifer Ann Janisch, Associate Director of Composition, students will be granted access to a Canvas waiver site through which they will submit the following portfolio contents:

• Unofficial Transcript (must include the current semester)
• Signed Agreement Form (available on Canvas) and Student ID Scan 
• Writing Samples 1-3 with coversheets (see details below)

English 302 Learning Outcomes

All work submitted for the Portfolio stage, which includes student writing samples and their analyses of these samples (for the coversheet), must demonstrate mastery of English 302 learning outcomes:

1. Students will be able to analyze rhetorical situations–audience, purpose, and context–in order to recognize the expectations of readers and understand the main purposes of composing across multiple contexts relevant to their fields of study.

2. Students will understand the conventions of academic and non-academic genres, to include usage, specialized vocabulary, format, and attribution/citation systems.

3. Students will be able to apply critical reading strategies that are appropriate to advanced academic and non-academic texts of relevance to their fields of study.

4. Students will identify and synthesize multiple perspectives in articulating and refining a research question relevant to their fields of study.

5. Students will engage in a recursive process of inventing, investigating, shaping, drafting, revising, and editing to produce a range of academic and non-academic texts of relevance to their fields of study.

Writing Samples

Each writing sample must meet the specific requirements listed below.

Writing Sample 1

A project you wrote for a Mason course in your major that derives from a complex and arguable research question you developed about an issue in your discipline and that demonstrates your ability to synthesize multiple perspectives in response to that research question. This project must be at least 6 pages, must use a discipline-specific citation style, and must demonstrate mastery of English 302 Learning Outcome #4. 

Writing Sample 2

A project you wrote for a Mason course in your major or a professional context related to your discipline that demonstrates your ability to write to a specific audience (outside of your professor and peers) and in a specific genre relevant to your discipline. This project must be at least 4 pages, must use (if sources are integrated) a rhetorically-appropriate citation style, and must demonstrate mastery of English 302 Learning Outcome #1 and Learning Outcome #2.

Writing Sample 3

A project you wrote for any undergraduate course or professional context that is at least 4 pages, uses (if sources are integrated) a rhetorically-appropriate citation style, and demonstrates mastery of any English 302 Learning Outcome.

Coversheets

Each writing sample must be amended to include, as its first page, the sample-specific coversheet provided on the Canvas waiver site. These coversheets are a crucial part of the portfolio, as they provide space for students to contextualize the sample (by explaining the course/context and assignment for which it was written) and, more importantly, to analyze the sample (by providing detailed explanation, with references to textual evidence from the sample, as to how it demonstrates mastery of particular English 302 learning outcomes). 

Please note that samples submitted without their respective coversheets are deemed ineligible for review.