Canisius College

1. They allow the department to assess how well our students are achieving the abilities and knowledge that we expect English majors to have.
2. They encourage you to reflect on your progress as an English major.
3. They provide you with writing samples for applications for jobs or for graduate or professional school.
4. They can help professors to write any letters of recommendation you may need by providing them with samples of your best work.

• Your knowledge of English literature;
• Your knowledge of American literature;
• Your knowledge and use of basic literary terms;
• Your use of primary and secondary sources properly documented;
• The demonstration of your analytical skills;
• Your ability to write clearly and precisely with a command of standard grammar and usage;
• Your ability to write a coherent, detailed argument in a paper of some length.

1. Three papers representing your best work over your career as an English major.
2. A cover letter for the portfolio that contains the following:
   
   
   • the rationale for including each paper in the portfolio; that is, how each paper meets the criteria;
   • your reflections on your reading and writing ability
   • your reflections on what you learned in the major

   In sum, the cover letter is your opportunity to assess your work and development in the major and to begin to consolidate your plans for the future.  The letter should be no more than a page and a half.

3. A copy of your resume.

1. Choose papers that cover at least two, and preferably three, years of your work as an English major.  In other words, it would be good for you to choose from each year—sophomore, junior, senior—the one paper that best fits the criteria for the portfolio.  As a practical matter, the English Department is asking every student to start his/her portfolio by submitting a paper from English 300.  You can do this by simply giving a clean copy of the paper you want to include in your portfolio to your English 300 professor.  He or she will see that that copy gets to the English Depart–ment secretary for filing under your name.  By "clean copy," I mean one that is without your professor's comments or a grade; in other words, you could print out a new copy from your computer file.  Each paper in your portfolio should include the following on the first page:  Your name, the class for which the paper was written, and the date the paper was due.
   
   

   Question:  What if I submit a paper from English 300 but then eventually  decide that a paper I wrote in one of my other courses in the same year is better? 
   
   Answer:  Replace the English 300 paper in your portfolio with the other one.  Since you will be writing a rationale for including each paper in your portfolio, you should have control over the final contents of the portfolio. 
   
   Question:  What if I take English 300 as a freshman?  Should I include four papers instead of three, to represent every one of my years as an English major?
   
   Answer:  Go ahead and turn in a paper from English 300.  You will simply have four years of work to draw from. instead of three.  Thus, you might want to choose one paper from your freshman and sophomore years, one from your junior year, and one from your senior year.

2. You must include one paper from your senior year in your portfolio.
3. Keep in touch with your English advisor, who can help you to select the best papers to include in your portfolio.
4. In the future (after you have turned in a paper from English 300), turn in any papers you want included in your portfolio to the English Department secretary, Geri Pawelek, in Churchill Tower 916.  She will maintain your official portfolio.
5. Your completed portfolio will be due near the end of your senior year.  The English Department will be in touch with you about an exact due date.
6. Although the English Department wants only three of your papers to be included in your official portfolio, it encourages you to keep a larger unofficial portfolio that you can use as writing samples for various purposes.

office:  Churchill Tower 911

phone:  888-2629

e-mail:  rebert@canisius.edu