Gazing around the massive, gilded hall, you see thousands of floating candles over four long tables covered in all manner of delicacies. Hundreds of students and professors mill around, loading up on pumpkin juice and breakfast food. As you walk in, you take a seat amongst your friends. You pour up a goblet of juice and start spreading some marmalade on a piece of toast. Better to load up now for your long day of classes ahead at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Just as the students at Hogwarts start at the Great Hall to prepare themselves for the day, this section will be the start to your journey through my English 131 writing portfolio. Here, you may prepare yourself as I guide you through the work I’ve accomplished and the skills I’ve developed over the course of the last quarter.

As you walk through each of today’s classes at Hogwarts, I will be telling you about a different aspect of my writing skills that I have worked to improve over the past ten weeks. For each of these individual areas of skill, known as “outcomes”, I have chosen to showcase a separate piece of work from this quarter that best presents my understanding of that outcome. The outcomes range from the ability to recognize and compose for a variety of audiences and situations, to crafting persuasive and complex arguments. Each of these outcomes represents an objective that is essential to success as an effective reader and writer. Along with each outcome, I will be presenting an original draft of my work from earlier in the quarter, as well as a revised piece that best displays how far my writing has progressed.

To showcase my understanding of Outcome 1, I’ve included the Passage-based Paper assignment to demonstrate my abilities in both recognizing an author’s rhetorical audience and context and in composing pieces to address my own rhetorical situation. For Outcome 2, I selected the Idea Pitch assignment to illustrate my learning in finding and analyzing sources from multiple perspectives to craft an original argument. To demonstrate my ability in constructing strong, persuasive arguments as outlined by Outcome 3, I took the time to revise and add my Position Project to this portfolio. Finally, showing my skills in revising and reworking my writing pieces, I composed a reflection piece that outlines my learning in Outcome 4 and my experience revising assignments for this portfolio.

Together, these reflections and revisions represent how far I’ve progressed as a writer over the past quarter. I hope you are able to enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed composing them. Now, the time has come for you to finish your breakfast in the Great Hall and head off to your first class of the day. Have fun!