The Portfolio Page

Due to Gorman Learning Center's restructuring, the Writing Program's evaluation process is on hold.  Further information will be available as soon as possible.

2007 Portfolio Submission Period: April 30 to June 8
Update! The Portfolio Submission Period has been extended through June 8 (the end of LP 10).

For more detailed information and tips on creating an excellent Portfolio, and to see examples from Gorman students, scroll below.

Cover Letter
The Revised Essay
The Reflective Essay

Examples:
These examples of strong portfolio documents were written by Gorman students in 2006. Note that the content of your portfolio documents will be unique to your own writing and grade-level. In future years, we will continue to add portfolio examples from students in varying grade-levels; who knows, if you write a stellar Cover Letter or Reflective Essay, your work may be showcased here next year!
2005-2006 seventh grade Cover Letter by Daniel Purdy
2005-2006 eighth grade Cover Letter by Natasha Wegter
2005-2006 seventh grade Reflective Essay by Katrina Bailey

Frequently Asked Portfolio Questions

The Portfolio
A Portfolio, a fourth submission on the year, is required of all students in grades 5 through 12. The Portfolio consists of: a Cover Letter; originals or copies of the three regular essays submitted for evaluation during the year, with evaluator commentary readable and rubrics attached; a Revised Essay, a revision of one of the three essays submitted earlier; a copy of the evaluator-narrative produced the previous year; and a Reflective Essay on the revision process (required for UC students only). The Portfolio will be used to assess the strengths and weaknesses of a writer's efforts, with specific advice given on what to improve over the course of the coming year.

A Portfolio in general is to be a demonstration of a writer's best work. In the world beyond Gorman, Portfolios serve a number of purposes: a Portfolio may be requested, for example, when applying for a job (especially writing-intensive employment), to a college or university, for scholarships, for internships, or to contests. Specific to GLC's Writing Program, the Portfolio serves two main purposes: it is to represent your best writing of the year, and it will be used to assess your present writing strengths and weaknesses so you understand what of your writing you need to improve on between yearly Portfolio submissions.

The Cover Letter
The primary purpose of the Cover Letter is to introduce yourself and the revised essay accompanying the letter as well as discuss and reflect on the significance of writing to your education and future. Further, it also provides an opportunity to practice drafting a professionally formatted letter of the type most businesses and not-for-profit and other organizations use.

The Cover Letter is to be one full-page in length. Although you may never have written a Cover Letter before, in the future you are likely to, especially once you are employed.

To draft a Cover Letter, begin by typing the date (if you are using MSWord, the program will likely recognize that you are about to draft such a letter and ask if you'd like assistance). Next, skip a space, then write out a return address: either your address; your IST's address; or, if you prefer, GLC's address: 1826 Orange Tree Lane / Redlands, CA 92374; Then skip another space, and write out "Gorman Writing Program," followed by the address to which the Portfolio is being sent (if you are in grades 5 through 8, the address is: 1745 East Grant Rd. / Tucson, AZ 85719; if you are in grades 9 through 12, the address is: 150 North Highland Ave. / Tucson, AZ 85719). Skip another space, then type out a salutation (take your choice among the following examples or create one of your own: "To Whom It May Concern:"; "To the Reader:"; or "Dear Evaluator:"). Skip another space, then begin writing!

The body of the Cover Letter should contain two full paragraphs and one short concluding paragraph. The first paragraph should begin by explaining why you are writing this letter (not because you have to, but because you have a purpose: you want something from readers). Then it should introduce yourself, discussing what is pertinent to the occasion - the school or program you are enrolled in, your grade-level, your IST, etc. Finally, conclude the first main paragraph by discussing the importance of writing - to yourself, to your education, and to your future.

In the second paragraph, begin by introducing the revised essay. First, identify its title and its subject. Second, explain why you chose to include that essay. Third, describe how you went about revising it, what you did to make it a better essay.

The final, short paragraph isn't really a paragraph but more just an opportunity to thank those involved in the process of evaluating your writing for their time and consideration and to say good-bye in a nice, professional way. To conclude the letter, skip another space after the final paragraph and then add a close (something like, "Thank you," or "Sincerely,"); then skip a few spaces and print out your name. In the space between the close and your printed name, grab a pen and sign your autograph! When complete, the letter should look and sound professional.

Back to top

The Revised Essay
For the Portfolio submission, you are to choose, in consultation with your IST, one of the three writings you submitted earlier during the year. Choose an essay that you want to revise, that you care to make better (this essay will need to be submitted along with the Portfolio, too, so that an evaluator can assess the quantity and quality of revisions).

To revise an essay means to improve it. Although revision is not editing, editing is part of the revision process. To edit an essay means to fix or correct errors, usually sentence-level errors like misspellings. Editing is generally the final step in the writing process. Revision, however, is part of the entire essay writing process. Revision means to re-see an essay, to figure out ways to make an essay more effective and then follow through, making the essay better. As one drafts an essay, one is usually further articulating and elaborating on rough or incomplete ideas generated prior to drafting, during the prewriting process - that is, one is revising ideas as they are being written. But in this case you are to revise an already written essay, one that you have already submitted.

Revision is the practice of making better. Most effective writings - whether novels, plays, poems, songs, speeches, newscasts, and even essays - are developed over time, through a revision process. As a process, revision means treating a draft of an essay to further thought, consideration, scrutiny. So you sit down and in an hour or two write an essay. Great, you have a draft. Or you have submitted an essay for evaluation and it comes back with commentary intended to help you re-see the essay, improve it, revise it for submission as a Portfolio. Great, again you have a draft. Now, to make the draft even better, you need to develop it further, revise it. The revision process can entail any number of activities, probably several, depending on what the draft needs: perhaps the introduction needs to prepare readers better for what the essay discusses; perhaps the thesis needs to be more clearly stated or revised to fit what the essay demonstrates once it has been fully drafted; perhaps an idea needs further elaboration or explanation; perhaps a claim or assertion needs further development or an example or two to support it; perhaps, instead of just adding more to the essay, some parts need to be omitted or cut because they are tangential or off-topic; perhaps instead of cutting some writing it would be best if placed elsewhere; perhaps whole paragraphs need to be reorganized; perhaps the essay's ideas are well-developed but its language or diction could be adjusted to create a more effective tone or voice; perhaps the essay needs a better, more compelling conclusion; perhaps the essay's ideas could be researched to be more informative, or perhaps the essay's existing researched materials need to be cited and documented correctly. The key word above is "perhaps": because every essay is unique and thus will have individually different needs, each essay will need different treatment to be revised effectively. As the above makes clear, good writing is usually not developed in a moment - in the hour or two it takes to whip out a draft - but through a process involving several visits to the same but improving draft, likely over several days or even weeks.

Your task is to revise an essay you have already submitted for evaluation. Take the essay you wrote and re-see it, look it over in relation to the evaluator's comments. Then, get to work: Revise the essay, making it as good as it can be (not just good enough to pass). To use a simile, the relationship of the initial essay to the revised essay should be like the difference between a photograph of a baby's face and a photograph of the face of the adult that the baby has become: in the initial form - whether baby or initial draft - is visible the elements that will make up the latter form - whether adult or revised essay - but the latter form also consists of many elements not in the initial form.

Some aspects to consider when revising:

Is the essay's title effective? Does it both suggest the essay's topic and offer something catchy to interest readers?


Does the introduction prepare readers for the discussion to follow? Does it provide a reason to interest readers in the topic or make clear why they should care?


Is the essay's thesis clearly stated or strongly implied early on? Readers need to get a sense of what an essay will demonstrate before they read it, or they are likely to be confused by the discussion. A thesis does not just tell a reader what an essay will discuss: A thesis is a statement about what an essay demonstrates, reveals, or teaches readers through its discussion.


Do paragraphs need transitional words, phrases, or even whole sentences to make evident the relationship between paragraphs? Does each paragraph body have a topic sentence, a sentence that states the main idea of that paragraph? A paragraph that is too short or too long is probably poorly developed. When a paragraph is too short, it likely needs further development, either elaboration or explanation of an assertion or the addition of an example or two to support an assertion. When a paragraph is too long, it is probably trying to cover too much information, which may confuse readers. If a paragraph is too short, practice prewriting - for example, brainstorming, clustering, or listing - to come up with ways to expand the paragraph's content, being sure that the addition relates to the essay's thesis. If a paragraph is too long, try to determine where a paragraph shifts topics or brings in unrelated, tangential material. In the case of a shift in topics, perhaps all that is needed is for the one long paragraph to be divided into two paragraphs (a transition and topic sentence may need to be added to the new, now second paragraph); in the case of seemingly unrelated material, it may be that some of the writing needs to be omitted or placed elsewhere (reorganized), or perhaps the paragraph's topic sentence needs to be adjusted to allow for the inclusion of what otherwise seems like a tangent.


If the essay seems unorganized, try outlining the essay in its current form to detect any gaps or inconsistencies in thought. With a detailed post-drafting outline, you may be able to see more clearly where your essay needs further development or reorganization.


Does the writing seem flat, sound like someone talking, or read like a text-book? Then you may want to try to adjust the tone or improve the voice. Voice pertains to style, to the word choices a writer makes to create an effect called voice. When we read, we become aware of and hear the voice of a piece of writing. Most writings have different voices. Pick up any piece of writing, and it's likely to have a voice of its own, whether it's the writing in a science textbook, a magazine article, a novel, one of your essays, a letter you wrote to a friend, or this paragraph you're presently reading. For each essay, try to create a voice that is appropriate to the subject or topic; for example, you would likely want to use a different voice when articulating an argument to legislators about changing a law than you would when writing about one of your favorite activities. In the former writing situation, you would probably want to sound serious, persuasive, informative, and knowledgeable, whereas in the latter situation you still might want to sound informative and knowledgeable but your voice or tone may come off as more lively and engaged. To adjust voice and tone, consider word choices and varying sentence types and lengths.


Does the essay's conclusion need improvement? Does it unduly summarize? The only time an essay's conclusion should summarize is when an essay is so long or complex that readers may need to be reminded of what they've read. Try to use a conclusion to drive home an essay's thesis, to stress the significance of what an essay has demonstrated, or to point to other related subjects that need to be discussed or questions to be answered. There is no one correct way to conclude an essay, just as there is no one way to write an essay. What matters most is that an essay, not matter what it does, effectively demonstrates its thesis. So be sure that your essay has proven its point by the time you've concluded it.

In the end, the goal of revision is to improve an essay. Given that every essay is unique, there is no one right way to revise an essay. Rather, it's a matter of need, of what a particular essay needs in order to improve. As you practice the skill of revision, you'll find yourself improving not just your essays but also your ability to revise.

Back to top

The Reflective Essay
In your reflective essay, reflect on the process of revising the essay you chose.  This essay should be three to five paragraphs in length. Some of the questions you'll want to consider when writing your Reflective Essay are below.

If you completed a Portfolio last year, re-read the evaluator-narrative that you received. Then, reflect upon how your writing has grown since last year's Portfolio. Here, you may want to specifically reference the evaluator-narrative. Has your writing changed or grown in any of the ways suggested in the evaluator-narrative?


Describe your revision project. What is it exactly? What did you find out while working on this revision?




Judge the overall quality of your work. Did your project turn out the way you planned? Did you accomplish your goals? Did you folow your timeline? Did you revise each aspect of the evaluator's comments? Why or why not?




Discuss what changes you chose to make in your revision. Why or why not did you choose to change these aspects of your essay?




Describe how you might have made your essay better.




How would you advise another student who is about to revise an essay?



After going through this revision process, what will you do differently next year in your writing?

Update: The Reflective Essay is required only for UC students. For all other students it is optional, though highly recommended.

Back to top

Frequently Asked Portfolio Questions
Can students younger than fifth grade submit a Portfolio?
Yes.  Although not required to submit a Portfolio, younger students are welcome to do so. 

Can students other than UC students include a Reflective Essay?
Certainly. The Reflective Essay is only a requirement for UC students; however, all students are highly encouraged to include a Reflective Essay with their Portfolio.

I enrolled at Gorman during the school year and have not received three evaluations from the Writing Program. What am I to do?
If you are new to Gorman or have not received three evaluations from the Writing Program, you may submit a Portfolio with less than three evaluations. Only in these cases may you also include writings that were not evaluated by the Writing Program, so that the reader of your Portfolio will see enough of your writing to comment upon.

Back to top

Example of a seventh grade Cover Letter
Cover Letter by Daniel Purdy

19 May 2006

Daniel Purdy
1826 Orange Tree Lane
Redlands, CA 92374

Gorman Writing Program
1745 East Grant Rd.
Tucson, AZ 85719

Dear Evaluator:

            I am writing this letter to introduce myself and my work as a writer.  My name is Danny Purdy and I am in the seventh grade.  I just turned thirteen years old and I am home schooled.  I think writing is important because it is one of the ways we become educated, express our thoughts and creativity, and I’ve learned that writing is an enjoyable pastime.

            This year I wrote several letters and essays and I have selected one to revise and share with you.  The title is “Describing the Beach to Grandma.”  The reason I chose this particular paper to revise is that it is a letter that I would actually write to my grandmother who lives in Canada.  It also includes something funny that really did happen to my mother when she was about my age at a beach where she used to swim.  Also, I live in Southern California and it excites me that I live close to something as amazing as the ocean.  Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that there are people in this world who have never been to the beach.  As I went about the job of revising this letter, I decided to take one paragraph at a time and rewrite it.  I spent quite a bit of time re-reading what I had previously written and thought about how I could make it more interesting to my readers.  I tried to improve every part of my letter for that reason.  I found it interesting to realize that what I had to say could be worded in a different way and still sound good.  I hope you enjoy the new version of my letter.

            I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people involved in helping me become a better writer.  I know it takes a lot of time and thought to read and correct letters and essays.  Every time I receive one of my writing prompts back I see how much the writing team really cares about helping me.  Thank you for your dedication.  I look forward to next year’s writing program.  It was through this program that I discovered I like to write. 

Again, I thank you all,

Daniel Purdy
(Note: this is where Daniel signed his letter.)

Daniel Purdy

Back to top

Example of an eighth grade Cover Letter
Cover Letter by Natasha Wegter

10 May 2006

Natasha Wegter
1826 Orange Tree Lane
Redlands, CA 92374

Gorman Writing Program
1745 East Grant Rd.
Tucson, AZ 85719

To Whom It May Concern:

            My name is Natasha Wegter, and I am in the 8th grade at Gorman Learning Center.  My IST is Michele Wegter.  I am writing this letter because I want your opinion and comments on my writing.  I think that writing is a very important part of my education.  I recently finished writing a ninety-page novel, and I believe that one of the reasons that I am good at writing is because of the Gorman Writing Program.
            I chose to revise a narrative that I wrote at the beginning of the year.  It was previously entitled “London Kidnapping.”  The story is about a little girl named Skylar who is kidnapped by a lady named Annette.  Annette moves next door to the Springers, and Mrs. Springer rescues Skylar.  I decided to revise this essay because it was from the beginning of the year, and my writing has changed a lot since then.  It was also my favorite story from the year, and even though it got good marks, I thought it could be a lot better.
            To revise this essay, I read it over a few times to get a good idea of what I wanted to improve.  Then, I fixed all the grammar and spelling mistakes.  I also had to put all of the dialogue into separate paragraphs.  Next, I changed the title to “One London Day.”  I thought that the previous title gave away too much of the story.  After, I made the opening more mysterious by changing the length of the sentences.  I also changed Annette’s name to River because that seemed to fit her better.  Finally, I changed the second to last paragraph.  I had that paragraph tell about Annette/River’s background, and her reasons for kidnapping.
            I would like to thank the Gorman Learning Center for their excellent writing program.  I know of no other school that has such great writing curriculum.  I would like to thank my writing teacher, Mrs. Boron.  Her class has helped me to feel more confident about reading my work out loud.  I would like to thank my mom, who is also my IST.  She teaches me so much, and puts so much of her time into me.  Lastly, I would like to thank you, the evaluator, for taking time to read my writing and helping me to develop into a better writer.  I am very thankful for you.  I hope you enjoy reading my portfolio.

Sincerely,

Natasha Victoria Wegter
(Note: this is where Natasha signed her letter.)

Natasha Victoria Wegter

Back to top

Example of a seventh grade Reflective Essay
Reflective Essay by Katrina Bailey

            It is sometimes difficult to revise an essay that seems to be great to begin with.  I needed to choose one of my essays that I thought needed the most revision, but it was on an easy task.  I read through each reader’s comments and suggestions until I decided on my letter that I wrote to a friend about spending the summer with me.  After the basic corrections were made with the grammar and punctuation errors, the fun began.
           
            The suggestion was made that I go into more detail about the games and rides that are available on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.  It was fun to go into detail about the carousel that was built in 1911, and the excitement of grabbing the brass ring and trying to get a free ride by tossing it into the clown’s mouth.  The more I described what it was like to ride the Giant Dipper roller coaster, the more I could actually feel the wind in my face and my hair streaming out behind me.  If I closed my eyes, I could smell the popcorn, cotton candy, and hot dogs as their scent wafted through the air.  There are so many different games and attractions that I decided not to add any more of them in my essay as I felt it would be too much and take away from the general feel of the Boardwalk’s description.

            The comments and suggestions from my reader were definitely very helpful in looking at my essay in a different way.  I learned that it is always a good idea to get the opinion of one or two other readers so that changes, additions, and corrections can be made accordingly.  This project helped me to look at my writing in a more objective way, and that has made a refreshing difference in my writing skills.

Back to top