Patricia Lynn's Point of View of Portfolios

In Patricia Lynn's thoughts on portfolios from her text "Coming to Terms; A theory of Wriring Assessment" she states that "for many years portfolios have been used for fine arts." However, in "writing instruction portfolios became popular during the early 1990's. (p37) She states that "ETS developed a proposed Portfolio Assessment Plan in response to educators' demands that testing reflect pedagogical theory" in the early 1980's. The plan for this was to have each student submit a variety of essays, a student selected piece, and an introductory letter addressed to real people such as admissions official or prospective employers. However, due to the "it was abandoned by ETS on the basis of its faliure to meet the angency's required standards of time-and cost effeciency, scoring reliability, and the appearance of scientific objectivity."

Again there seems to be the issue of cost and time that keeps popping up when it comes to assessing. From the research that I have read, students seem very fulfilled with their portfolios. Also, with technology being part of all of our lives, this is where students can learn technology and writing at the same time. I think when students use peer evaluation, they also learn from each other because they might critic or praise the others work and in turn learn something new.

I think the research is lacking when it comes to portfolios in the United States; however, from some of the articles I have read (one from Japan and one from Finland) there seems to be a real interest in this type of learning and assessing. However, because it is a new way of teaching and many people are resistant to change, in my opinion, I think it will take some time before portfolios and electronic portfolio become part of the curriculum.