Common Assessment Tool 2: Writing Portfolio

Writing portfolios are another common assessment tool. When creating a writing portfolio, teachers collect several writing samples across subjects, and include a variety of different genres. These pieces of writing demonstrate a student’s range of writing abilities, show the progress of student writing over time, and can provide a complete picture of the student’s writing. They are a purposeful collection of student work, which show a students writing process, progress, and achievement. Assessment and instruction are seamless, everything the student does is integrated in the portfolio and the assessment process. However, writing portfolios also require extensive time to collect, review, and maintain. In addition, each student’s portfolio contains different pieces of work, which, while highlighting the student’s best work, makes it difficult to assess all portfolios using the same criteria. (Olinghouse, 2009). 

As a writing teacher, I see the benefit of using writing portfolios to assess a student’s writing process (how they draft, edit, and revise their work), as these elements are important pieces of writing that are not evident in a student’s final piece draft. I also see how keeping a record of student’s writing across subjects can be helpful to identify a student’s overall strengths as a writer, and can be helpful to identify areas where they require additional support. I also would find it helpful to see the progress they have made throughout the year, as a way to guide future instruction.

However, while it can provide an overall picture for writing, I’m still unclear on how a teacher would assign a mark to a writing portfolio. Is this not an important element of writing assessment? I wonder if the purpose of a writing portfolio would useful more as a tool to provide information of overall student success and areas for improvement, and less useful as a tool meant to ‘assign a grade’.  This is an area I wish that the articles discussed, and I am curious to hear other’s perspectives on how this tool could be used to assign marks to students.