First of all, portfolio’s have a good side and a bad side–it is all determined by the way they are used. Portfolio’s can serve as a great learning tool and a wonderful way to display educational growth throughout a given time frame. Nevertheless, in the classroom today there is such a focus on the portfolio and scoring a proficient or a distinguished that the educational value is taken away from the portfolio. I worked in a fourth grade classroom this past semester and I had the opportunity to work one on one with students concerning their portfolio. I was actually told by a teacher, “Don’t help so and so very much because they can’t really write past a novice, but so and so you can make them about a proficient.” Is this right!!! Should I just take the computer and write it for them and stamp their name on it. This is completely wrong! There was an entire week devoted to typing and revising portfolios–where important instructional time was lost. Then some of the disks became corrupted and revised materials were lost and the student hadn’t printed the revised copy and it was very chaotic. Therefore, the teacher had me retype the piece for them–because I “typed faster than the child did”–as it was before they revised it. To me, this is not teaching individualism but instead, it is promoting dependency.

On the other hand, the portfolio can be very beneficial if the actual work of the student is included and used to display educational growth. By revising over and over and having an adult sit right by the child and coach them sentence by sentence–”This needs to have more detail. What color was the house? What did you feel….?” To me, this approach is like taking the creativity out of writing. In the schools, the focus isn’t on the educational worth for the child. Instead, the focus is on how many novices, apprentices, proficients, and distinguished scores the school receives.

I believe it is crucial to allow a student to develop a character of writing on his/her own. We can provide them with the foundation, writing format, and correct grammar rules but as far as coaching them sentence-by-sentence–we can’t do that. Don’t get me wrong, writing a few suggestions on a paper and maybe have a conference or two is nice and the child can grow from these experiences but I believe it is important for the child to grow as a writer from practice. Eventually, they will develop their own style and voice–it will come natural. I had an art teacher once that told me, “You want to be a better artist?” Of course I thought he was going to hand me this awesome technique of what to do, but he replied with, “Practice and you will be a better artist.” The same goes with writing here. You want to be a better writer you need to practice.