Writing Tips for Portfolio Entries

All writing is mostly editing.

I . GEARING UP
If you’ve followed the Getting Started recommendations, then you’ve begun gathering the raw
material for each portfolio entry: the portfolio entry prompt, the assessed standards, and your
evidence. Now you’re ready to write, but how do you start?

THE HABIT OF WRITING:
• There are many ways to write. Some people stick to the outline. Other people free-write.
There’s no right or wrong, there’s only you. Use what works for you.
• Don’t spend too much time on word choice and grammar while you’re getting out your ideas.
• The important thing is to start putting your ideas on paper. If it helps, keep a journal and write
several times a week to get in the habit of writing.
• Keep a small notepad with you at all times, so you can jot down events, observations, and
ideas when they occur.

OUTLINING:
• Create a framework for each entry, including the requirements, the assessed standards, and the
commentary questions from each portfolio entry.
• Use the framework and your evidence to create an outline, first with broad themes, then
fleshing out the themes with evidence and ideas. A good outline gets you started and saves you
hours of off-topic writing. The outline is also a valuable editing aid.
 

II. CONSTRUCTING A PORTFOLIO ENTRY

This four-level schema may help you think about constructing and editing your entry:
• structure ­ check that your entry as a whole clearly meets the requirements
• argument ­ check that your arguments have all their parts
• style ­ check your usage and consistency
• grammar and spelling ­ check your clarity of expression

STRUCTURE:
Your first goal is to have a portfolio entry that meets all the requirements and is easy for the
assessor to score.
• The overall structure of each classroom-based portfolio entry is to describe your classroom and
instructional context, analyze your instruction and student interaction, and reflect on your
instructional practices.
• Did you answer the questions that were asked? Compare your written entry to the entry
requirements. You can change your writing or your outline, but you can’t change the
requirements.
• Each entry is read by a different assessor. Therefore, each entry must stand on its own. You
cannot assume the assessor knows anything about you or your instructional context except
what you write in that entry.
• You’re given a scoring guide in each portfolio entry, in the section titled “How will my
response be scored?”: use it!

ARGUMENT:
Your second goal is for each sub-argument to be complete. As with the overall structure of the
portfolio entry, sub-arguments can also be structured with description, analysis, and reflection
(though every sub-argument does not require all three parts).

Analysis
• The most common problem of portfolio entries is that they are mostly descriptive.
• Teachers make hundreds of decisions a day. Teachers’ everyday expertise is implicit
knowledge, which never gets expressed. The analysis requirement of the portfolios forces
candidates to put their silent knowledge into words.
• Analysis answers the why? question by giving explanations, rationales, reasonings, and
decision-making processes. Explain why you did what you did.
• Analysis is often found in statements with because or therefore or in order to.
• The borders between description, analysis, and reflection are fuzzy. What is descriptive in one
context can by analytical in another. Note the saga of Keisha and Bob in the examples.

Writing arguments
There are two basic forms of argument: pyramid arguments begin with evidence and build up to
conclusions; inverted pyramid arguments begin with conclusions and work down to evidence.
Each form has its own uses.
• The pyramid argument’s strength is its unfolding of the situation by telling a story. However,
because it is an unfolding story, it’s easy for a reader to read the description, then jump to their
own analysis and impose their own instructional choices onto the situation before you have had
a chance to give your analysis. Therefore, the pyramid form is best used for arguments that end
in reflections that address other possible instructional choices.

Brief example of a pyramid argument:
<Description> In this video segment, the students have chosen to divide themselves by
gender. The boys are all seated together, as are the girls. In this case, the conflict being
resolved was a “boys versus girls” playground battle arising from my students’ strong self-identity
as boy or girl. This class has been particularly prone to...
<Analysis> Therefore, I
allowed students to self-segregate, to prevent an in-class flare-up of gender conflict. Keisha
and Bob, the respective ring-leaders of the girls and the boys, have no target for their...
<Reflection> Although this was a successful policing strategy and the students learned about
getting along, I wondered whether they learned to get along. I decided that I would change
the small group activity I had planned for the afternoon by...
 

Brief example of an inverted pyramid argument:
<Analysis> The segregation of the class by gender was purposeful, in order to lessen the
underlying conflict of boys vs. girls, as evidenced in the playground battles that spurred this
class discussion. By so dividing the class, individual conflicts between neighboring boys and
girls were avoided and instead, students spent the discussion time...
<Description> In this video segment, the boys and girls discuss the situation without the animosity displayed in
their playground battles. Keisha and Bob, the two main antagonists, sit safely out of reach of
one another and have joined in the...

• The inverted pyramid prevents readers from jumping to the conclusion by putting the
conclusion first. Since the reader doesn’t have the context, he or she can’t reach his or her own
conclusion, and, therefore, is more likely to accept your interpretation. The inverted pyramid is
best used for reporting or justifying some act of practice.

Checking arguments
• Do you make assumptions that need to be laid out?
• Are there gaps in your reasoning that need to be filled with description or analysis?
• Do you provide the assessor with specific reasons for your important instructional choices?
• Do your peers agree that the instructional choices you highlight are important? Have you
missed any choices? Do you overemphasize trivial choices?

STYLE:
In writing, “style” is about consistency and clarity, not flair or extravagance. For portfolio
entries, this level of editing is less important than it is for works intended for publication.
However, style must not be ignored.
• Write simply and choose good words. There’s no need to scribe elaborately or utilize
inappropriate verbiage.
• Heavily cut unnecessary words that serve no purpose in your writing.
• Don’t stretch for synonyms. For example, you can believe more than one thing; you don’t have
to think, hold, opine, consider, judge, sense, trust, or deem.
• Avoid slang, jargon, and dialect. Your assessor may be in rural Idaho, uptown Manhattan, or
Miami Beach. Ask yourself the theater question: Will it play in Peoria?
• Always explain abbreviations and acronyms.
• Avoid clichés. They’re boring.
• When people are first introduced in an entry, describe their relevant identity. “John Block,
district superintendent, first announced...” “Phat, whose family emigrated from Vietnam just
last year, tried to explain...”
• Transitions between sub-arguments can help the reader follow your thoughts, but they aren’t
valued in scoring the entries. It’s okay for your writing to be somewhat choppy if it satisfies all
entry requirements.

GRAMMAR AND SPELLING:
Proper grammar and spelling clearly transmit your ideas and appropriately present your
professional work.
• Good grammar and spelling score no points, but poor grammar or spelling can make it difficult
for your assessors to understand (or focus on) your meaning.
• Use your word processor’s grammar checker, but don’t trust it.
• Ask someone to read your entry for grammar and spelling.

III. EDITING PORTFOLIO ENTRIES EDITING YOUR OWN WRITING:
• Some people recommend that you put away what you’ve written, for a few days or weeks.
When you come back to it, all the assumptions you made about what the reader knows will
jump out at you because you’ll have forgotten most of those assumptions yourself.
• Some people recommend reading (or having someone read) your writing aloud. The ears may
catch what the eyes missed.
• Make multiple, focused edits. Choose a single level from the schema ­ don’t try to fix
everything in one pass!

EDITING SOMEONE ELSE’S WRITING:
• Read through it once, without editing. It’s checking the map before you start backseat driving:
you may want them to go right, but their left turn may be just as good.
• Remember, you’re not the writer:
i. Point out a weak argument;
ii. ask whether they provide evidence for a given standard;
iii. ask yourself if they answered the questions posed in the requirements;
iv. indicate ambiguities;
v. don’t write for them.
• Point out the good as well as the bad.
 

IV. COMPUTER TIPS
• Keep old versions of your files. When you open a portfolio entry’s word processing file,
choose menu FILE, option SAVE AS, and save it with that day’s date in the file name (e.g.,
“Entry 1 Nov 1”). That way, if you make a bad mistake and then save the file, you can go back
to an earlier version.
• Keep backups of your portfolio entry files. Most people back up files on floppy disk. Others E-mail
files to family outside of earthquake country for safekeeping.
• Beware of saving your files only on floppy disk. Fooey! Floppies frequently fail. Hard drives
are much less likely to fail.
• Use antivirus software and update the virus detection files frequently. This is especially
important if your family shares a home computer and (1) gets a lot of E-mail attachments or (2)
carries floppies between home and school computers. Most school computers have antivirus
software but rarely update the virus detection files. This means that they are vulnerable to
about 200 new viruses each month.