Portfolio Contents

A portfolio consists of a completed information form together with the following four equally important pieces of prose writing. Papers written in school or out of school, including college application essays, are acceptable. Papers may be revised after being returned by your teacher.

1) A Reflective Letter

The reflective letter, addressed to Miami University’s composition teachers, sets the tone for the portfolio by introducing both the writer and the individual pieces of prose writing. Readers are not expecting a narrative of your experiences and growth as a writer but, rather, evidence of the critical reflection you used when you produced and assembled your portfolio. Successful letters explicitly introduce the prose pieces and explain the purpose and audience for each.

2) An Explanatory, Exploratory, or Persuasive Essay

This research-based essay should be a focused, informative analysis, argument, or reflection of a specific topic integrating multiple sources of information and demonstrating proper citation and documentation. All claims that you make should be supported with convincing examples and extensive, appropriate detail.  Your essay should also examine multiple points of view and show strong evidence of critical thinking, awareness of audience, and attention to social context. Please include a title with your essay. You may find that you’ve written an essay for a class other than English that fits this category.

3) A Response to a Text

This essay should respond to a written text (essay, novel, play, poem, or short story) or a cultural text (film, music, or visual art) produced by professionals, classmates, or yourself. The response should interpret or evaluate all or part of a text. Possible approaches to this response include:

Use support from the text to develop ideas and strengthen focus without overshadowing your own response or giving extensive summary. If secondary sources are used, they must be cited correctly. Please include a title with your essay.

4) Writer’s Choice

This selection may be a blog (please cut-n-paste posts into a word-processing document), editorial, informal essay, multi-genre essay, narrative, or other genre of your choice. Be especially careful in your reflective letter to name the genre of this selection and to explain why you have included it, the purpose of the piece and the audience it is intended for, and what it shows about your writing. If the text you choose is an audio, video, or other non-word-processing file, please attach it to your submission email. (Note: we cannot accept email attachments larger than 20mb.)