Final Portfolio Reflection – The Year in Review

Congratulations! Your portfolio work is just about done! You’ve reflected on every piece of writing in it, and now it’s time to revisit your thoughts and reflections and come up with one final piece of writing about this year in English 11 class. Follow these steps, please (you may use this bulleted format if you wish):

  • First, re-read the portfolio guideline sheet to analyze what reflections should contain. Then, re-read your reflections for each work. Remember, to get full credit, your reflections should completely answer the questions in the packet. If reflections are not completely done, revise or add to them!
  • Effort in Class Writing: Next, write about your writing this year. First, describe your effort in class writing such as homework, quizzes, tests, journals, etc. Did you honestly attempt to improve your writing, through strategies we reviewed/learned such as pre-writing, rewriting, proofreading, reflective writing? Could you have put forth more effort? Be honest.
  • Rewriting: As you know, one way to get your desired grade in English 11 was to rewrite tests, research papers, homework, etc. Did you rewrite this year? Describe the ones you did; did your grade improve as a result? Did your satisfaction with the pieces of writing improve?
  • Portfolio Finished Product: Looking at your finished writings, how satisfied with them are you? Do you feel they are the best of which you are capable? Do you think you could still improve them? Of all the writings you did this year, which were your favorite and why?
  • Class Readings: Reflect on the class readings we did (on next page), everything from poems to short stories to novels and plays. What readings did you enjoy most? Which readings communicated the best lessons, in your opinion? Which had the most bearing on real life for you? Explain fully.
  • English Class: Mr. Iten had many goals for you this year: to pass the Regents exam, improve your writing, read sometimes demanding works of literature, write critically and knowledgably about literature, apply the works of literature to your life, and, hopefully, to find literature that appealed to you and a genre that will continue to appeal to you. How successfully did you meet these goals based on your work, reading, etc.? Be thorough in your response.

English 11 Readings

Novels:
Of Mice and Men
Tuesdays with Morrie
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Free reading choice
Plays:
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Short Stories:
“Lark Song,” W.P. Kinsella
“The Devil and Tom Walker,” WashingtonIrving
“The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin
“White Alligator,” Andrew Vacchs
Poems:
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot
“The Death of the Hired Man,” Robert Frost
“To a Mouse,” Robert Burns
“Expect Nothing,” Alice Walker
“Be Beautiful, Noble, Like the Antique Ant,” Jose Garcia Villa
“The Red Wheelbarrow,” William Carlos Williams
“This is Just to Say,” William Carlos Williams
“The Rhodora,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Concord Hymn,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Brahma,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Death Be Not Proud,” John Donne / Miscellaneous:
“Who Are You,” The Who
“The Station,” Robert Hastings
“Glory Days,” Bruce Springsteen
“All the King’s Horses,” Kurt Vonnegut’s Monkey House
Finding Forrester
An American Tail
Of Mice and Men
Crossroads (the Ralph Macchio film, not the Britney Spears film)
The School of Rock
The Matrix
Smoke Signals
Excerpt, If Chins Could Kill, Bruce Campbell