Portfolio Handbook
8th Grade Portfolio
At the end of the year, you will be required to write a brief narrative describing the Quality (Communication, Collaboration Creativity, Persistence, or Inquiry) that you most excelled in over the course of the year. You will be referencing/linking to an endeavor from one of your classes in order to illustrate your claim. You will also identify the quality that you most want to develop in high school. This Quality Status Statement needs to appear on your 8th grade page.
In the example from this student (below), the Quality Status Statement is based their excellence in Persistence. Underlined captions in the following text would be hyperlinks to other pages on this student’s website that are supportive examples of how they excelled in the area of Persistence.
This year I have excelled in persistence. I think I have used this quality very well and excelled in it this year because so far I’ve used it in all of my projects. I used persistence and kept going, trying to make my project the best, even when I wanted to give up. One project I did where I used a lot of persistence was the This I Believe essay in Language Arts. I had to use persistence when it was really hard for me to write down how I was feeling. Even though I’ve felt a strong use of persistence this year, I still need to work on my inquiry skills. I know now that I’m not giving up on anything as easily as I would have last year, but I still feel like I’m not asking enough of the right questions to really make my work the best.
What's a Quality
Status Statement?
Experience Page
Here, the student will update desrciptions of their after-school activities and interests. This page is an intro the student's "outside of school" persona, which will become more extensive in future years. Eventually, this page will discuss internship experiences and jobs.
Reflections
Students will feature their 4 final Reflections on the 3 respective Entry pages for 8th grade (linked to from the grade-level overview page). Each Entry will be graded by the content area teacher for that class, and will factor equally into the final Portfolio grade.
Grade-Level Overview Page
The 8th grade page will include a Quality Growth Statement (description below) that summarizes the 8th grade year in terms of growth through one of our 5 DRSS Qualities.
In addition, the page will highlight the 3 classes students will feature on separate Entry pages. Each class & growth topic will be indicated by a thumbnail picture & short descriptive teaser which leads the reader to a separate Entry page.
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Also included on this page will be a link to the student's Genius Hour Project page. The driving question for this project, along with a thumbnail and short descriptive teaser will lead the reader to the separate Genius Hour page.
Summary & Deadlines
Students are extending their use of the wix web platform as they interpret the year's activities and express their growth in more detailed ways using claim, evidence, and reasoning.
By 3rd quarter, students will choose which 4 classes to represent in their websites through an equitable selection process. (They will not be able to choose both Chinese and STEM Foundations.) They will work on revising their Reflections through multiple drafts in each of their content classes.
The final portfolio will be linked when they email a potential job shadowing contact at the end of the school year. Hopefully, the students will take that opportunity to secure a job shadowing location for the Fall of their 9th grade year.
Qualities Pages
The main Projects Page of the website will be updated (if necessary) to better explain PBL (project-based learning) and the importance of the 5 Qualities in the student's own words. From here, the 5 quality pages will each be linked and described on its own page with updated personalized definitions written by the student.
"How am I ready for high school as a result of my 8th grade year?"
The main Projects Page of the website will be updated (if necessary) to better explain PBL (project-based learning) and the importance of the 5 Qualities in the student's own words. From here, the 5 quality pages will each be linked and described on its own page with updated personalized definitions written by the student.