Introduction

General information about the lower division, general education composition requirement at Humboldt State University.

Program Courses

Program Instructors

Portfolio Information

• About the Portfolio System at Humboldt State
• Portfolio Scoring Guide
• Portfolio Submission Requirements
• Portfolio Cover Letter Information

Writing Resources

The Writing Center

Humboldt State University offers three credit-granting composition courses that fulfill the University’s Area A Written Communication General Education requirement: English 100, English 100I, and English 200. Each course is designed to prepare you to write college-level prose using the conventions of academic English. In everything that you do, class participation is a very high priority. You will be required to read and discuss both professional essays and compositions written by you and your peers. A major goal of these classes is to help prepare you to write in academia as well as for personal growth and for the acquisition of knowledge. In order to do this, you must learn to express complex ideas and feelings in ways that others can understand; we will ask you, therefore, to work at writing that moves from what we call "writer-based" to "reader-based" prose and from a known audience—your peers and teacher—to a larger audience: the portfolio committee.

Specifically, our department is committed to teaching writing as a process. We focus our work on assignments which encourage fluency, multiple drafting, careful revision, editing, and, eventually, polished essays presented in a portfolio for final evaluation. You will be asked to compile two portfolios during English 100/I or 200. The first, your Working Portfolio, should include all the drafts, revisions, and reader responses produced throughout the semester. This portfolio will serve as a record of your work for your individual instructor, and it could be requested at the end of the semester as a supporting document in determining your course grade. The second portfolio, the Assessment Portfolio, is discussed below.

Since 1986, the Humboldt State University Composition Program has employed portfolio assessment to determine student readiness for writing in the university. Composition Program faculty like the portfolio evaluation method because it challenges both teachers and students to analyze and reflect on their work. In order to grow as writers, we all have to reflect upon our own writing processes, and there is no better aid to this kind of reflection than a portfolio of work gathered for assessment. The portfolio helps both teacher and student strive for excellence and long-term development, and it does this by shifting the responsibility for learning to write from the teacher to you, the student. As a writer, you must grow accustomed to assuming responsibility for the quality of your writing. You must work at becoming an independent writer and learner rather than over-relying on the instructor for approval and direction. The portfolio encourages this kind of responsibility because it emphasizes objective evaluation standards. With the portfolio, instructors from the Composition Program who have never seen your work before can bring to your papers an objective reading. We score many student papers and portfolios each semester, so we are very confident in our ability to evaluate the degree to which your papers reflect what is expected of all university-level writers.

The portfolio system enables your teacher to be a coach and editor rather than simply a judge. Rather than debate grades, instructors and students create responses to writing, thereby establishing a collaborative writing environment rather than a competitive classroom environment. Finally, the portfolio system requires that teachers meet in groups to discuss assignments, set standards, and share successful teaching strategies—ultimately improving the quality of the total writing program as well as individual teaching effectiveness.

English 100I/100/200 students earning a course grade of C- or better at the end of the semester are eligible to submit an Assessment Portfolio. A complete Assessment Portfolio consists of a scoring guide and four pieces of writing: a reflective cover letter and three pieces written during the current semester for English 100I/100/200. At least two of the four written pieces must be analytical; neither poetry nor fiction may be included in the portfolio. The portfolio must contain a minimum of twelve full pages and should not exceed sixteen pages (excluding bibliography / works cited pages). Click here for a handout (in Microsoft Word format) detailing Assessment Portfolio submission requirements.

At the end of the semester, your English teacher will score the portfolios from all students in your class earning a C- or better. S/he will then turn those portfolios over to the Portfolio Committee—a body of trained professionals who are also teaching English 100I/100/200 during the current semester—for a second score. (Please note that the second reader has no knowledge of the score your teacher assigned.) If those scores match or are within one point of each other, those scores are combined to achieve your portfolio score; if the scores do not match, a very experienced Portfolio Committee reader will determine the portfolio’s score. To pass, a portfolio must earn a combined score of 8 or above.

Because students enter the University with a range of prior writing experiences, many students need more than one semester to fulfill the University's composition requirement. Therefore, students whose portfolios do not earn the minimum score will receive an RP (Report in Progress) for English 100/I. These students will subsequently enroll in English 200, a three-unit course that provides further opportunities for additional composing, revising, and editing of papers. The grade earned in English 200 will apply to English 100/I.

Students earning a course grade of D+ or lower are not eligible for final portfolio submission. These students must receive an F in English 100/I (or a NC in English 200) and repeat the course. (Students may now repeat a course without a petition. While each attempt at the course will appear on a transcript, the cumulative GPA will reflect only the most recent grade.) 

The English 100/I requirement can be fulfilled at another institution; however, the grade the student receives at another institution cannot replace or remove the grade received at HSU.

Click here for a printer-friendly version of the Portfolio Scoring Guide.

UPPER-RANGE PORTFOLIOS demonstrate a degree of proficiency at organizing, developing, and conveying in standard written English the writer’s ideas to an appropriate audience; the portfolio provides evidence of a suitable degree of writing self-awareness.

A 6 portfolio demonstrates superior writing competence but may exhibit minor lapses in one of the items below. A portfolio in this category:

• shows clarity, depth, and complexity of thought
• explains or illustrates key ideas clearly with a good deal of elaboration and specificity
• shows syntactic variety and demonstrates a sophisticated command of language appropriate to the audience
• is generally free from errors in mechanics, usage, and sentence structure

A 5 portfolio demonstrates strong competence in writing but may have minor lapses which are not serious enough to confuse the reader. A portfolio in this category:

• shows clarity of thought, with some depth or complexity
• is overall well organized and developed with a moderate amount of elaboration and specificity
• shows some syntactic variety and displays a strong command of language appropriate to the audience
• is generally free from errors in mechanics, usage, and sentence structure

A 4 portfolio demonstrates adequate writing competence but may contain more frequent lapses than the 5 or 6 portfolio. A portfolio in this category:

• shows clarity of thought but may show less evidence of depth or complexity
• explains or illustrates key ideas with some elaboration and specificity
• is generally unified, organized, and coherent, generally supporting ideas with reasons and examples
• shows adequate command of language usually appropriate to the audience
• may have some errors but generally demonstrates control of mechanics, usage, and sentence structure

LOWER-RANGE—or Developing—PORTFOLIOS demonstrate a degree of difficulty in organizing, developing, or conveying in standard written English the writer's ideas to an appropriate audience.

Category 2 or 3 portfolios that demonstrate strong writing self-awareness 
may be scored one point higher.

A 3 portfolio demonstrates developing competence but is flawed in some significant way(s). A portfolio in this category reveals one or more of the following weaknesses:

• shows clarity of thought but exhibits some difficulty with focus or unity
• develops major ideas somewhat but supports generalizations with little or superficial elaboration or specificity
• employs a limited vocabulary or poor word choices sometimes inappropriate for the audience
• has a pattern or accumulation of errors in mechanics, usage, or sentence structure

A 2 portfolio demonstrates limited competence and is seriously flawed. A portfolio in this category reveals one or more of the following weaknesses:

• shows problems with clarity or coherence
• lacks development of major ideas; may not explain but simply repeat them
• has very weak organization
• employs limited vocabulary or poor word choices frequently inappropriate for the audience
• has numerous errors in mechanics, usage, and sentence structure

A 1 portfolio demonstrates fundamental deficiencies in writing skills. A portfolio in this category contains persistent writing errors or is considerably underdeveloped. has numerous errors in mechanics, usage, and sentence structure

A 0 portfolio fails to meet submission requirements.  It may lack a cover letter, or it may include too few or too many submissions, or it may include too few pages.