Portfolio 3: Goals

The goals of Portfolio 3 include our desire to:

1. Add the student’s voice to the ongoing conversation on the issue selected by each student.
2. Continue to develop student awareness of texts as ongoing conversations on issues of importance and relevance to themselves and the world
3. Continue to develop engagement in the world of both problems and ideas through reading of a major national newspaper and to reassure students of their ability--and indeed their responsibility as citizens--to participate in the development of ideas and actions that contribute to improvements and solutions
4. Continue to develop student awareness of texts as products of particular purposes, audiences, and contexts (rhetorical situations) and develop student ability to read such texts critically
5. Develop students’ positions based on knowledge of the ongoing conversation and critical reading of the participant arguments rather than on uninformed and unchallenged opinions
6. Continue to teach students how to focus and develop their own texts (essays) for educated audiences
7. Continue to teach students how to make choices about the content and development of their writing based on context
8. Continue to teach students how to incorporate knowledge gained from other sources (text evidence) into the development of their claims and reasons, especially to learn how this is done variously in publications.
9. Teach students how to do deep (global rather than merely local or stylistic) revision of their writing