Since Fall Semester 1994 when the Middle Tennessee State University English Department ran its first Portfolio Composition Pilot to test the effectiveness of using portfolios to evaluate first-semester student writing, thousands of students have submitted portfolios of their self-selected, revised writing and nearly 100 teachers have been trained in portfolio assessment.  Many of these teachers have gone on to use portfolio assessment at other colleges and in at least two instances to institute portfolio programs elsewhere--Dr. Ray Legg at Bryan College and Dr. Julie Lumpkins Basler at Columbia State Community College.

In an effort to find an assessment pedagogy that would best serve first-year writing students and also facilitate training of new graduate teaching assistants, Dr. Ayne Cantrell, Director of Lower Division English Studies (1993-97),  collaborated with Dr. Sushil Oswal, Assistant Professor of English (1994-96),  to establish the Portfolio Composition Program as a program within the General Studies English offerings. The program modeled Dr. Oswal's work with portfolio assessment at the University of Cincinnati.  Portfolio assessment was selected because it is systemic to writing-as-process pedagogy, which focuses on  writing as the recursive practice or prewriting, writing, and rewriting.  Portfolio assessment is the ideal means of evaluating writing generated in courses that emphasize writing-as-process because portfolios showcase the students' ability to revise their work and acknowledge the idea that good writing is rewriting.

After the pilot proved successful, Dr. Cantrell adopted the portfolio assessment system for training graduate teaching assistants charged with teaching first-semester composition.  These new teachers were joined by volunteer part-time and full-time faculty.  From 1994 to 2002 about one-third of the department's English 1010 (Expository Writing) sections and about one-fourth of English 1020 (Argumentation and Research) used portfolio assessment.

Teacher training plays an important role in the Portfolio Composition Program.  Portfolio teachers meet in workshops twice each semester to discuss grading standards and to practice portfolio evaluation.  Also portfolio grades are normed through team assessment of selected portfolios.  Although the final grade is the classroom teacher's responsibility,  teachers do read and discuss each other's sample A, B, and C portfolios as well as all borderline and F portfolios (no D's are awarded in first-year composition).  Team assessment is a "helpful reality check," says one portfolio teacher.  "I want to compare my portfolio grades to other teachers' grades. I could be grading too hard or too easy."

Contributing to the uniformity of the program are instructional materials generated by portfolio faculty.  These include Portfolio Composition: A Student's Guide for English 111 Portfolio Sections, rev. ed. 2000 (by Ayne Cantrell with contributions by Sushil Oswal, Linda Badley, and Maria A. Clayton) and  Portfolio Composition: A Student's Guide for English 1020 Portfolio Sections, rev. ed. 2001 (by Linda Badley, Ayne Cantrell, and Maria A. Clayton).

Evaluation of the Portfolio Composition Program is an ongoing process. Students, as well as faculty, are given opportunities to critique the program.  Initial reservations that students would not tolerate the postponement of grading and that portfolio assessment would inflate departmental grades have not materialized.  Students are encouraged to speak to their instructors at any time they are concerned about grades, and at mid-term they submit a practice portfolio and receive an informational grade, which, although it is not be figured into their final grade, shows their standing in the course after seven weeks of writing.   A comparison of grades for portfolio sections with nonportfolio sections of composition shows that portfolio assessment does not inflate grades: The average grade in portfolio classes is a C while the average grade in nonportfolio composition is a B-.  Also the tracking of composition students reveals that portfolio students go on to make higher grades in  subsequent writing courses than nonportfolio students.

One of the goals of the Portfolio Composition Programs is to encourage composition intensive research among the teachers in the program.  Instructors have presented papers on their use of portfolio assessment at academic conferences of  the Tennessee Council Teachers of English, Tennessee Philological Association, Tennessee College English Association, National Council Teachers of English, and the Conference on College Composition and Communication. In addition, two dissertations address program concerns: Maria A. Clayton's "CAI Portfolio English 111: A New Direction for Freshman Composition at Middle Tennessee State University" (1998) and Julie Dell Lumpkins' "The Role of Audience Instruction in English 111 Portfolio Composition and Audience Awareness and Adaptation in Selected First-Semester Student Writing at Middle Tennessee State University" (2001).

In Fall 2002 Dr. Cantrell stepped down as supervisor of  graduate teaching assistants and GTAs were no long required to use portfolio assessment.  Instructors continue to volunteer to teach in the Portfolio Composition Program.

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