Topic 8.1: Choosing Your Best Content
Choosing Your Best Content
It's time to show your best work in this course. You will construct a portfolio that focuses on three samples of your best writing.
If you're wondering how you will go about making your selections, step back and review the sheer quantity of work you have produced over the term. You may want to consult Andrea A. Lunsford’s "Assembling a Writing Portfolio Links to an external site." before you start choosing your content for your portfolio. As a participant in a process-oriented course, you have amassed a wealth of data relevant to your process. You can literally see your writing develop from idea to product, and because you have this excellent source of data, you can reflect on where and when you started to make changes in your style or technique or subject choices.
Take some time to view "The Birth of a Word," a TED Talk by Deb Roy. Pay close attention to the first six minutes of the lecture. The video shows an interesting connection between what you are being asked to do for your portfolio and what Roy did as a researcher of language acquisition.
The Birth of a Word
Links to an external site.
You, like Roy, are a researcher. And your job is to identify moments of learning and inspiration in your best work. You, like the child in Roy’s video, have been going from "gaga" to "water." That is to say, it is time to look over your data and trace the points of your progress.
By "best" work, you are being asked to choose the work that demonstrates your best writing and not necessarily your favorite examples. If you think back to Roy’s video, there were moments where surely the expression "gaga" came at a memorable (and cute) moment—it is part of the joy of watching children acquire language. But the end goal was the utterance of the word "water." Metaphorically, you are searching your water moments. Your reflection can discuss some of your favorite moments in achieving your best, however.
Finally, as you work at constructing your writing portfolio, take a look at Janet Echelman’s TED Talk as a source of inspiration for your own reflective process. Echelman discusses her sculptural works in a sequence that shows progress in terms of brainstorming ideas, learning techniques, evolving them (ideas and techniques), seeking peer review, working collaboratively, and setting new goals. As writers, prepare yourself for the same type of exploration of your best content!
Taking Imagination Seriously
Links to an external site.
Assignments
|