The purpose of the FAST FORWARD portfolio program is to verify that students are performing at a college level. Without prescribing curriculum or individual teaching styles, the program will allow UNC Greensboro to review the work of students, to evaluate that work, and to demonstrate to all stakeholders--students, parents, teachers, and other educational institutions--the quality of student work.

The Fast Forward English portfolio is a collection of student work that is a selected set of all the work that a student produces. It will show that the student has developed a complete composing process, that the student has developed a language to describe and alter that process, and that the student has learned to think critically and, creatively about all kinds of texts, including literary texts.

The following features describe the basic English portfolio model:

• The portfolio will open with an annotated Table of Contents of approximately one page. In the annotations, the student explains the writing task each entry is responding to as well as what he or she believes was accomplished in the text itself.

• The portfolio will include three to five selections that show a variety of genres, styles, and purposes; at least one of these demonstrates the writer's work with literary texts. Together, these selections should total 15-20 pages.

• Additionally, one of these selections shows the complete process of writing that created it, from invention to drafting to final product. The student will also highlight changes made from one draft to the next, and will include a one-two page description of how the text developed from one iteration to the next.

• The portfolio will close with a unified and coherent reflective text that allows the student to interpret his or her experiences in learning to read, write and work with text. This reflection, of three-four pages (750-1000 words), addresses the following questions:


a.    What have you included in this portfolio and why?
b.    Of the texts presented here, what was your most successful text, and why? Which of your texts gave you the most difficulty and why?
c.    How do you see yourself as a writer, compared to the beginning of the course?
d.    How did your reading affect you as a writer, and how did your writing affect you as a reader?
e.    What have you learned about writing, about reading, and about the connections between writing and reading?