Purpose

Hello, and welcome to my writing studies (WS) portfolio! I'm extending an invitation here for you to follow my ongoing journey as both a graduate student in the MA English program at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi (TAMUCC), as well as a lifelong learner and scholar.

Our graduate handbook states that we graduate students in the MA English program are to "create a portfolio of evidence with a reflective analytical essay." I am going to challenge this prompt a bit by de-nominalizing both terms "portfolio" and "essay," and in light of writing studies theory, to show here how I use writing in portfolio-ing and essay-ing ways that do not necessarily need to be evidenced in the closed forms of a "reflective, analytical, scholarly essay of at least four single-spaced pages," nor a portfolio of chosen coursework that is separate from and therefore devoid of the reflecting accomplished in the essay portion.

Why portfolio, and why use a website? Portfolioing involves collecting, selecting, and reflecting on my learning throughout and beyond my graduate career, and what better medium to convey my changing choices and learning than by using a digital and readily available website? Rather than construct a "portfolio" that encloses coursework accomplished in a closed period of time, or a "reflective essay" that encloses end-of-MA reflecting, I thought creating a website would best illustrate a live application of my theories of writing that I've only started developing since the beginning of my graduate program. In other words, I don't intend to tuck away this "writing" as might be expected of an essay, thesis, dissertation, etc.; this site will retain use-value long after graduation.

There are several reasons you might want to use this site, depending on the activity we're in. If you are an administrator or faculty member with evaluative authority within TAMUCC's English graduate department, you probably expect me to demonstrate my learning in the MA program in this space. You probably expect to see evidence that I understand writing studies theory and that it informs my coursework and potential future practices. You also probably expect a portfolio design that itself speaks to the evaluative situation in which we're to be engaged.

If these assumptions are true, then the next step after defining purpose is to set guidelines and procedures about how we're going to achieve said purpose. To see the site road map, please click on the drop-down menu under the "Home" tab and click "Site Map," or click here.