Writing with Integrity: The Portfolio Option

In response to the deluge of GenAI-related academic misconduct in introductory English classes, take-home writing became, for me, a non-starter. I determined to shift to entirely in-class writing. But how exactly was I going to make it work? With help from Gwenna Moss Centre staff, I developed a portfolio assignment that has proved to be more than a defensive stop-gap. It’s a flexible structure that allows for focussed practice of skills and student self-assessment. It’s adaptable for higher levels and other disciplines. And you can likely integrate, as I did, some of your existing classroom activities.

In brief, here’s how the assignment worked:

• The syllabus stated that students should expect to do regular in-class exercises designed to hone a range of foundational skills for literary study (e.g., close reading, assessing interpretive statements, identification of narrative techniques, argument analysis, scholarly annotation). 
• After completing a 10 to 20 minute exercise in class, students uploaded their work directly to a Canvas assignment folder.  
• We then discussed the exercise as a group, allowing students to pool and compare responses. (Exercises were ungraded, but I would skim submissions after class and leave brief notes for students who most needed further direction.) 
• In week 8, students reviewed their submissions and chose their four strongest pieces to revise and present in a polished portfolio of work, along with a reflection on their selection and revision process. (Prior to the submission date I devoted one class to a workshop on revision, with examples and a practice exercise.) 

The first term I tried this assignment, I had no idea how it would go. Happily, I found a number of positive benefits: 

• Regular attendance was incentivized, fostering energy and cohesion in the class. 
• Improved quality of discussion: students were more forthcoming as they had done some thinking and had their work to refer to.  
• Real-time feedback: through the ensuing discussion, students could gauge how well they understood each exercise and could pick up on what they missed. 
• Attentive listening and note-taking: students tuned in to that discussion knowing they could draw on it when revising their work. 
• Autonomy and ownership of learning: students revisited, selected, and improved on earlier work rather than submitting and moving on. 
• I enjoyed the marking: the submissions were interestingly varied and gratifyingly demonstrated improvement.  

Student feedback was overwhelmingly positive as well. They reported that as the term progressed they got better at thinking on the spot, that focussed exercises helped sharped their skills, and that they learned to engage directly with the texts rather than relying on lectures. And they appreciated the authenticity too. For these exercises, one student wrote, “there is no way to use AI and I feel it genuinely reflects my learning.”

Does this solve all our problems? Of course not. Use of AI is difficult but still possible: especially in larger classes, your eyes can’t be everywhere. Marking portfolios requires looking back at the original in-class work as well: it is time-consuming. And extended research essays written outside of class are still necessary for the degree. My hope is that this kind of secure, structured, focussed practice of foundational skills at the introductory level helps build the confidence and clarity to work with integrity at higher levels.

But there’s another kind of integrity that this reconfiguration has definitely helped with: mine, as a teacher. The reality is that the tidal wave of GenAI is not what killed the introductory English essay. The work of reading challenging texts and honing interpretations has been steadily undermined for years by, well, the entire internet. So behind my question about how to shift to in-class writing was a deeper one: under these circumstances, how can I still hope to offer what I most want for students at this level? That is, genuine encounters both with literary works in all their strangeness and with their own thoughts and powers of discernment—and from those encounters, the pleasure of discovery and greater understanding of self and other. The portfolio assignment has helped to preserve not just academic integrity in my classroom but my own passion for being there. 

About the USask Assessment Champions

This article is part of a series featuring USask Assessment Champions, educators recognized for assessment practices that help students learn deeply, demonstrate their abilities, and thrive academically. Discover more about the Champions and their work on the Assessment Champions webpage.

Dr. Ella Ophir is a USask Assessment Champion, and an Associate Professor and Undergraduate Chair in the College of Arts & Science.

This resource is shared by the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning (GMCTL), University of Saskatchewan, under a CC BY-NC-SA license.