10XX 18th St. N. Apt.

X
Fargo, ND 58102
10 December 2010
Department of English
North Dakota State University
NDSU, Dept. 2320
P.O. Box 6050
Fargo, ND 58108-6050

Portfolio assessment readers,

In this letter I will reflect on this last semester in English 320. I will list the different projects that
are covered in my portfolio, which projects show my literary and communication strengths,
which projects or elements of the projects that I could improve and revise, and show the different
ways in which the projects meet course objectives.

Here is a list of the projects that are included in my final portfolio in order of appearance:

 Cover Letter  Instructions

 Designer Resume  Usability Test Report
 Scannable Resume  Project Proposal
 Transmittal Letter  Project Progress Report
 Recommendation Report  Individual Project

All of these projects are briefly explained and a digital copy of the document is also available by
simply clicking on the title of the document on the left side of the page.

Each of these documents challenged us to write and communicate in different genres and in
some cases different mediums. The piece that I believe best displays my strengths as a writer can
be seen in my individual project. For this project I was able to pick the topic, genre, and
communication medium so I tailored all of those areas to help me write my best. I chose to write
a blog which is an informal style of writing and I chose to write about topics that were familiar
to me. Unlike with a research paper or letter of recommendation where the subject material may
be unfamiliar, writing about subjects that are familiar helped me to focus on the writing itself
and not just the material.

With anything, there is always room for improvement. The document that I believe most needs
to be revised is my instruction booklet. My group completed the assignment by writing a set of
instructions with at least fifteen steps, but we didn’t expand and explain as well as we could
have. Our goal was to have clear and concise instructions, but we under explained the process in
trying to accomplish that goal. The other issue that we had with the instruction booklet is that we
failed to explain the specifics of the process. The title was nondescript and the instructions
themselves were meant to be specifically for walleye fishing.
Over the course of this class we covered a variety of genres of professional writing in order to
meet the course objectives. We fulfilled the Gen Ed Outcome 1 by writing and speaking about
different projects such as instructions, recommendations, graphs, and resumes. For the Gen Ed
Outcome 6 we brainstormed ideas alone and in groups and then worked the ideas into our
projects. For Departmental Outcome 4 we set timelines for ourselves, constructed bibliographies
and internally cited our work. To fulfill the Departmental Outcome 7 we worked in groups and
designed contracts for our members to follow with guidelines and consequences built in. Every
assignment in this class was geared towards fulfilling these course objectives and I believe we
did just that.

Throughout English 320, we learned the ins and outs of professional writing. We started with the
basics of job applications and then worked through the daily writings of memorandums,
transmittal letters, and recommendation reports. Finally we branched out to learn about modern
writings with our projects. My group made a booklet and my individual project involved a blog.
This course has prepared us to be competent when it comes to writing in a professional business
atmosphere.

Sincerely,

Tanner Olson