English 0345, Writing Fiction

Dr. Filas

Final Portfolio Assignment

You must include a detailed, section-by-section table of contents

1. Final Portfolio Assignment (25%)

20-25 pages of your best work. Selection, revision and proofreading are the key factors here. Select works that demonstrate your finest capabilities as a fiction writer. Have a strategy for your selection: did you select writings that demonstrate a range of forms, a range of topics, a sustained theme, a varied theme? There is no one right formula for this selection except where you feel you can perform at your very best capabilities. Revision is the process of going back and changing content, sometimes severely, re-writing and reworking to enhance themes, characterizations, plot tension, atmosphere, etc. Proofreading is reviewing revised drafts for perfected punctuation, spelling, format, page-numbers and layout.

The first page after the table of contents should be a one-page, single-spaced reflection in which you discuss your writing and your development over the course of the semester, and your writerly identity. Here you can draw my attention to the ways your writing has grown, the ways you have made progress, and where your portfolio best reflects your identity as a writer.

2. Journal Writing (10%) This is your developmental work as assigned and completed independently throughout the semester, such as the plot assignments, anthropomorphized object assignment, microfictions and other short writing types, crot writing, list writing, narration exercises, love-hate exercise, and other queues provided during the term. You may also include in this section any assignments or workshops you completed, with my comments, including work that is included (in revised form) in the final portfolio or performance sections. This section must be typed.

Regarding those texts which I have seen and graded or commented on: this section should include all my comments in one place. You may include a small selection of written student comments (that you received), choosing those 3 or four pages that you found most helpful and which point to ways you have developed as a writer this term.

3. Your performance elements (15%): frame-fame selection and submission materials. None of the two pages of the fame-frame stuff can be redundant to selections in part one. Your submission for publication can be redundant to any part of your portfolio. Your selection for your in-class reading can be taken from any of the sections of your portfolio but it is not turned in on paper separately, just read.

Items 1, 2, and 3 combined comprise a nearly comprehensive portfolio, except that they exclude your critiques, which have been graded separately and count for 20% of your final grade.