PORTFOLIO

PORTFOLIO - DUE ON THE LAST DAY OF CLASS - MARCH 14th

PORTFOLIO                                                                                                  

Consider this a presentation of your writing process (not necessarily product).  I want you to choose pieces that are going to reflect the most spectacular (think spectacle) attempts you made at writing this semester.  It should be a record of both victories and failures—and most especially, writing still in the midst of becoming itself.  Your revisions should be drastic in some cases… tweaking words and taking out single lines is just not enough.  Prove to me that you can take chances not just in the initial composition process, but in the messy white-heat-of-revision stage.

Your portfolio should consist of:

            1. At least two drafts of 5-6 pieces written this semester.  It would be helpful to me if your drafts included some line-edited pages by helpful peers.

            2.  A copy of all the glosses and critiques you provided for your writing partners.

            3.  A 1-2 page (single-spaced) close reading and reflection on a poem -- that we read for class -- that affected you AS A POETRY WRITER this term. A close reading = a gloss + an examination of the strategies and formal elements that help the poem do what it wants to do.  A reflection = your response AS A POET to both the how-ness and the about-ness of the poem. Use all the craft concepts relevant (rhyme, meter, POV, mood, diction, voice, syntax, enjambment, stanza, etc.)

            4.  For each of your 5-6 pieces I need a description of your revision process (either a paragraph, or sticky notes with arrows, or a hyper-text link, or a talking puppet who accompanies your portfolio and tap-dances Morse-encoded explanations).

            5.  A three-to-four page introduction to your portfolio that tells me who you are/were/are becoming as a writer and/or as a human being in relation to poetry and the work of this class (reading, writing, thinking, sharing, critiquing, and developing as a citizen and a non-passive participant of the world of this classroom and beyond).  Please include in this text some details about your writing partners’ contributions to your work (do not judge them completely by what they “got” or didn’t “get,” but by sincerity and effort as well). 

Please make the portfolio pleasant to behold, handle, etc. Your writing exists as both process and object.  Personalize the object (with your other talents if you like) while attempting to objectify the process in such a way that frees you to substantially revise.

Cheers.