All graduate students seeking degrees in English (M.A. and M.S. in Ed.) must complete a Graduate Portfolio as part of the requirements for graduation. The department believes that students' conscious reflection upon their learning can help expand their understanding of how they learn and how particular ways of thinking inform the educational process. One of the goals of the English Department is that students develop the ability to interrelate their studies, to put the English curriculum into a perspective relative to their other studies and experiences. With this in mind, the English Department has chosen to use student portfolios to assess the extent to which this and other goals are achieved. The requirements of the portfolio are as follows:
- An Entry Paper. This is the same as your personal statement (part of your application to the graduate program). It will automatically go into your portfolio file.
- A Minimum of Three Papers selected by the student, written for different graduate courses. Papers should be turned in with the exit paper.
- An Exit Paper, minimum 5 pages, due the fifth week of the student's final semester, and addressing these 5 points, as the student deems them relevant:
- The central purpose in writing each of the papers; the extent to which the student thinks the paper was successful; perhaps why one was more successful than another; and a discussion of the critical approach(es) used to examine or teach the texts.
- A discussion of the interrelationships among graduate courses; to what extent was the course work an integrated graduate experience?
- A discussion of the relationship of the graduate program to the student's undergraduate experience. Did it largely repeat the undergraduate experience, or did it go significantly beyond into further, deeper, more complex studies?
- A self-evaluation of the student's judgment of intellectual and professional growth resulting from the graduate study.
- Any further comment the student wishes to make on the nature or success of the graduate program; any suggestions the student would like to make about improving the graduate experience.
- The central purpose in writing each of the papers; the extent to which the student thinks the paper was successful; perhaps why one was more successful than another; and a discussion of the critical approach(es) used to examine or teach the texts.
The graduate degree will be approved only after a complete portfolio is submitted and accepted by the student's graduate advisor.
Students should keep copies of ALL coursework completed in their graduate classes. In addition, students should keep a copy of everything submitted to their portfolio, including course papers.
Guidelines retroactive to Fall 2001