Think About This! // 6

Writing Portfolios - A Picture of Progress  

I've had great success implementing writing portfolios in my classrooms over the years, and I've heard from many other teachers who feel the same. Today I want to share some of the main reasons why I consider them such an important part of a student's writing journey. I hope you enjoy! 

Benefits for the Student:

• The Writing Portfolio is a wonderful tool to display the student's writing process in a visual manner and breaks complex writing skill into tangible outcomes with maneuverable routes. 
• In addition it provides the student with a marker of their progress, confidence from their edited (published works) and an outline of where they are going.
• It separates their writing into the diverse categories of writing genre which further enhances their understanding of varied writing forms.  
• The portfolio can also include an appendix of numerous wonderful writing tools that assist the student in their daily work regarding word usage, varied sentence starts and sentence structure, enhanced vocabulary, writing in the active voice, action verbs, the "dead word" list, varied genre- specific rubrics, etc etc.

Benefits for the Teacher:

• The structure of writing will be questioned less as the students become self-sufficient as a result of the tools they have provided to them within their portfolio.
• Pride of ownership of the student's compilation often results in a tangible change in the student's desire to write because they can mentally break writing into its many categories, work on the areas they need to improve upon and enjoy their visible successes.
• Management becomes much easier for the teacher once they have established strong student portfolio protocols.  There will be less "lost" or "missing" work, fewer questions regarding daily tasks, fewer questions about where and how to submit work and a more manageable format for marking work.
• When parent meetings take place at Parent-Teacher Conferences, or when the student has opportunity to display the portfolio to their parents the portfolio will give the parents strong insight into their student's growth and also to where practice is still required.

Portfolio dividers can be designed to suit the common core elements of the writing criteria whatever grade you teach. This way, the portfolio remains a significant method of filing and demonstrating the deep and layered levels of learning that the written form lends itself to. A great example of portfolio dividers I use regularly is the 'My Writing Portfolio' bundle Carli and I developed a while back and are now offering on TPT. Click the picture below if you'd like to learn more!

However you choose to organize your writing portfolio system, I strongly encourage you to incorporate this in your classroom. It has been such a help to me and my students, and I'm sure it will be to you and yours as well. If you're already experiencing great success with writing portfolios in your classroom, please share some of your top tips and insight in the comments below. We'd love to learn more about your experiences with this dynamic tool!