Resource Topics

Standards and Assessment - Portfolios

Additional Resources

The Birth and Death of Portfolio Assessment

The Quarterly, Winter 2002
Pauline Sahakian
Sahakian calls attention to false assumptions about portfolio assessment that her school fell into: that new teachers will, without any orientation, be successful practitioners of and advocates for this form of assessment. More ›

Portfolios That Make a Difference: A Four-Year Journey

The Quarterly, Fall 2001
Judith Ruhana
Middle-school teacher Ruhana began using portfolios in her classroom and gained some valuable insights into her students' abilities. This article is a chapter from the The Whole Story: Teachers Talk About Portfolios. More ›

Picture This!

The Quarterly, Fall 1996
Stephen Marcus
Marcus writes about the uses of photography both to prompt and to supplement writing. More ›

Writing History: Before and After Portfolios

The Quarterly, Winter 1996
Stan Pesick
Pesick demonstrates how the use of writing portfolios in his history class prodded students to engage in aspects of "historical thinking." More ›

Video Visits: An Innovation for Learning about Portfolios

The Quarterly, Spring 1995
Pam Perfumo
Perfumo and her colleague Bob Calfee ask teachers to videotape a discussion around the use of portfolios and mail the tape to them for analysis. They present their findings on portfolio use and evaluate video as a form of research. More ›

TR 65. Student Portfolios and Teacher Logs: Blueprint for a Revolution in Assessment

National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report, 1993
Robert C. Calfee, Pam Perfumo
The authors present a new concept of alternative assessment: the teacher logbook, designed to support and effectuate the portfolio approach and to connect portfolios to other facets of teacher professionalization. More ›

Notes on the Portfolio Approach to Teaching Writing

The Quarterly, Spring 1992
Laurie Bottoms
Bottoms' experience cautions that for portfolios to have maximum value they must give to student writers the authority for doing the writing and for the choice of subject, audience, degree of revision, and form of publication, which all writers claim. More ›

"Could You Please Come and Do Portfolio Assessment For Us?"

The Quarterly, Winter 1992
Sandra Murphy, Mary Ann Smith
The writers insist that a multisession inservice program is the best setting for introducing teachers to the advantages of and strategies for a functioning portfolio assessment program. More ›

Evaluation: "My Portfolio Shows Who I Am"

The Quarterly, Winter 1992
Jane Hansen
Spotlighting portfolio work at three grade levels, Hansen finds that portfolios provide opportunities for writers to select items to show who they are, to set their own goals, and to discover the significance of their decisions. More ›

There's a Lot of Things You Learn in English That You Can't Really See

The Quarterly, Winter 1992
Bob Ingalls, Joyce Jones
The authors describe how portfolio evaluations become more valuable when they include an interview process in which students participate. More ›

Making the Writing Portfolio Real

The Quarterly, Spring 1990
Kathryn Howard
Howard presents a structure for moving students toward successful portfolios. When collection, reflection, and selection are used in concert, she asserts, a very positive message about writing and writing development is sent to students. More ›

Talking About Portfolios

The Quarterly, Spring 1990
Sandra Murphy, Mary Ann Smith
After describing their portfolio project, the writers conclude that portfolios are messy, not a panacea. They need to be part of the regular operation of the classroom, where they lead to discussion and decision making. More ›

Thinking Together About Portfolios

The Quarterly, Spring 1990
Roberta Camp
This report by a writing assessment specialist records the explorations of a group of teachers who are thinking through what they would like portfolios to do for them and their students, and developing processes to make portfolios a valuable part of the students' learning experience. More ›

Portfolio Assessment: An Annotated Bibliography

The Quarterly, October 1988
Lillian Bridwell-Bowles, Karen Greenburg, Sandra Murphy
Bibliographical annotations on major works up to 1988 focused on portfolio assessment. More ›