Portfolio Three

Responding to a Community Need: Generating Viable Solutions

Portfolio Requirements

• Introduction Memo
• Proposal
• Report
• The Documents You Created
• Reflective Memo (instructions below)*

For Portfolio 3, you may choose to work in groups or as an individual. If you choose to work in groups, the document marked with an asterisk above (*) must still be written individually.

Portfolio 3 will also have a presentation/multi-media compenent. More information about this component will be discussed in class

For Portfolio 3, you will decide how to arrange and turn in the materials of your portfolio in order to make the best impression on the reader.

Objective

• To become even further involved with the community (the university and the larger community)
• To identify a real need within an agency, a political group, a school, or a church
• To use multiple sources of information both within and outside the organization to address the need
• To discover how writing can be developed to meet real needs and to produce writing that has a real rhetorical purpose
• To learn how to respond to feedback effectively
• To use standard technical writing genres (proposal, report, etc.) within particular and varied writing situations.

Community Need & Contact Person

The first step in preparing Portfolio Three is to identify a need within an organization. This organization can be a non-profit agency, a school, a political group, a church, a university organization, etc. The Project Opportunities website may help you find a project. Or you may look at organizations in which you or those you know are involved. The key is to discover a real need that can be addressed through research and writing. Make sure it is something actually desired by the organization; do not force a project they don't need nor want upon them. You must be able to document the need.

Identify and work with throughout the project a contact person within the organization. This is the person from whom you will get information, instructions, and feedback. This person will help you determine the need and what kind of document(s) will address that need. The contact person may already have very clear ideas about what is needed, or your role may be to make recommendations about how to address the need.

You will be asked to provide the instructor with detailed contact information for this contact person. Once you have made arrangements to begin a project, the instructor will send the contact person a letter/e-mail explaining the course, the contact person's role, and what you (as their writers) will be evaluated on.

Proposal

A proposal is essentially a problem-solving document. It identifies the need and explains how that need will be addressed in specific detail. A Proposal must also be persuasive--you must convince your reader that there is indeed a need and that your solution is viable. In the context of this class, you must also prove that your project meets the expectations of the course and is fitting in subject and scope for you or your group.

Click here for more specifics on the proposal assignment.

Report

The culmination of your effort will be a report in which you present several options to address the need and make one recommendation--the most feasible solution. The report assumes that although you chose one solution in order to address the problem that you considered and researched other options. It will also discuss in detail the results of implementing your solution, including specifics about the testing and feedback process you went through with your audience and/or client. Your report must use multiple methods of presentation: textual and visual.

Click here for more specifics on the report.

Reflective Memo

Even if you worked as a group, you must write the reflective memo individually, without assistance or consultation from your group members. Address the following questions:

• How does your final project reflect principles of good professional writing? Be specific, and use references to your work and to our readings and discussions to prove your point.
• What do you see as the strengths of the document you produced? Be specific--it is okay to be proud of what you have accomplished.
• What do you see as the weakness? If you had time to revise, what would you do differently? Be specific here. Admitting weakness is NOT a weakness, if you can discuss it critically and reflectively.
• What did you learn about professional writing from this project? Note especially anything that you learned that was not covered in our readings & discussions.
• Evaluate your own performance. Did you complete tasks to your satisfaction? Did you complete tasks on time? Do you think the quality of your work is up to par? On a scale 0 to 100%, how would you rate your performance? Provide evidence for your ranking.
• If you are in a group, also rate the performance of each of your group members. Did they each complete tasks on time and satisfactorily? Did each fully participate, or were some members more active than others? Was their work of good quality? Did they work cooperatively with other group members? On a scale of 0 to 100%, how would you rate the performance of each group member? Please provide evidence for your rankings.
• Discuss other aspects of the project experience that you want to bring up.

Presentation

Each group will present their project orally during the last few days of class. If you wish, you may invite your contact person to attend this presentation. Consider this a semi-professional presentation. While you don't have to dress to the nines, there is an expectation that you will be prepared, organized, and professional.

Click here for more specifics on the presentation assignment.