© 2007 INTERNATIONAL READING ASSOCIATION (pp. 432–434) doi:10.1598/JAAL.50.6.1

J O U R N A L O F A D O L E S C E N T & A D U L T L I T E R A C Y 5 0 : 6 M A R C H 2 0 0 7432

F. Todd Goodson

The electronic portfolio: Shaping an emerging genre

The electronic portfolio: Shaping an emerging genre

In his landmark essay “The Problem of SpeechGenres,” Mikhail Bahktin (1986) explored genresas patterns of communication in everyday life andthe ways those patterns are used to create morecomplex, secondary genres. Bahktin’s work helpedto establish contemporary genre theory, an under-standing of communication patterning that goeswell beyond the familiar literary genres. He argued:

Secondary (complex) speech genres—novels, dramas,all kinds of scientific research, major genres of com-mentary, and so forth—arise in more complex andcomparatively highly developed and organized cultur-al communication (primarily written) that is artistic,scientific, sociopolitical, and so on. During the processof their formation, they absorb and digest various pri-mary (simple) genres that have taken form in un-mediated speech communication. These primarygenres are altered and assume a special characterwhen they enter into complex ones. They lose theirimmediate relation to actual reality and to the real ut-terances of others. For example, rejoinders of every-day dialogue or letters found in a novel retain theirform and their everyday significance only on the planeof the novel’s content. They enter into actual realityonly via the novel as a whole, that is, as a literacy-artistic event and not as everyday life. (p. 62)

Just as the novelist might take, for example, amemorandum (a genre we typically associatewith the business world) and fold it into a novelin order to advance characterization or plot, weask students to blend genres when they createportfolios. Within virtually any scheme of portfo-

lio assessment, those being assessed are requiredto take texts created in other contexts, for otherpurposes, and weave them together with sum-maries, introductions, reflections, and the like totell a new story for a new audience. The originaltexts or artifacts collected represent existing gen-res (e.g., an essay), and although the audience ofthe new genre, the portfolio, is aware of thegeneric traits and the rhetorical situation sur-rounding the production of the artifact, that arti-fact is now part of another narrative embeddedwithin another situation. Generally speaking, themore rhetorically skillful the creator of the port-folio is in terms of unifying the portfolio as notmerely a scrapbook of things compiled but as anew genre, the more likely the portfolio is to re-ceive a positive response from its assessors.

The most recent variation on portfolio as-sessment, the electronic portfolio, takes the incor-poration of existing genres to an entirely newlevel, as the electronic portfolio makes it relativelyeasy and efficient to include artifacts (genres) thatgo beyond printed texts. For example, an electron-ic teaching portfolio might well include lessonplans, student work samples (themselves poten-tially reflecting a rich variety of genres), video ofclassroom performances, electronic multimediapresentations, and so on. All of those genres areabsorbed and digested by the new, complex genreand take on a new life, with a new purpose, in adifferent context, and for a different audience.

E D I T O R I A L

New genres are created to meet a need un-met by existing genres. The electronic portfolio iscertainly an adaptation of the existing portfoliogenre, making the portfolio more efficient for theinstitutions requiring it and potentially more re-flective of students’ contemporary literacies. Theemergence of the electronic portfolio also high-lights some of the conflict present in approachesto assessment by the K–12 and higher educationcommunities. K–12 assessment efforts trend to-ward increasingly standardized objective assess-ments. Commercial assessment packages thatcombine computerized administration of testsand management of data are gaining considerabletraction in the marketplace. Meanwhile, highereducation generally, and teacher education specif-ically, is investing considerable resources in port-folio assessment. Driven by accreditation issues,teacher education programs are looking to someform of portfolio assessment as a means of docu-menting preservice teachers’ learning relative toestablished performance standards.

The use of portfolios in the evaluation ofteachers does not stop when those new teachersenter the profession, however. Many states im-pose some form of portfolio assessment on newteachers during a probationary period, and anever-increasing number of school districts requirea portfolio as part of teachers’ periodic perform-ance evaluations. Beyond that, the NationalBoard for Professional Teaching Standards(NBPTS) has developed a rigorous form of port-folio assessment to document and reward thework of accomplished teachers.

These contrasting trends illustrate, I believe,our conflicted approaches to assessment. On theone hand, we want efficiency and objectivity. Wewant students to sit for exams at computers, andwe want disaggregated data complete with multi-colored charts and graphs suitable for spiral bind-ing to emerge from the printer in the corner of theroom. On the other hand (and especially when itcomes to measuring our own performance), wewant authenticity, complete with multiple sourcesof data, reflections on learning, and so on.

Our attempt to balance the authentic andthe objective is easily demonstrated by theNBPTS assessment process. Candidates submit aportfolio that involves choice as to what is select-ed and reflection upon those choices, but thosechoices and that reflection are carefully con-strained by an intricately detailed protocol. In ad-dition to submitting the cardboard box full ofportfolio materials, candidates must also sit for acomputer-administered examination at an assess-ment center. But although the examination is ad-ministered on a computer, most certificationareas require short essays, with responses thatcannot be machine scored. In other words, theNBPTS approach to assessment quite possiblyrepresents the most fully realized, conscious effortto create a large-scale standardized assessmentsystem incorporating a balance of the objectiveand the authentic. The system is certainly notwithout its detractors, and it lacks the extensivehistory of other assessment systems. Nevertheless,assessment trends in the near future will mostcertainly represent further attempts to balancethe objective and the authentic.

In her contribution to this issue, HelenBarrett outlines these issues in considerable detailand calls attention to the conflicting purposesportfolios, and now electronic portfolios, aremade to serve. She also describes the potentialelectronic portfolios hold for balancing compet-ing assessment aims. One thing is clear: The ob-jective and authentic assessment traditions areconverging in cyberspace. The transition of ob-jective testing from paper and pencil to keyboardis nearly complete. As portfolio systems becomeelectronic portfolio systems, the tradition of au-thentic assessment in education will also moveinto digital space, as virtually any authentic per-formance can be captured, digitized, and ab-sorbed into an electronic portfolio.

The position electronic portfolios will havein the future assessment landscape remains to beseen; however, it is difficult to imagine that theiruse will not continue to increase. Given the needto impose efficiency on the portfolio assessment

The electronic portfolio: Shaping an emerging genre

J O U R N A L O F A D O L E S C E N T & A D U L T L I T E R A C Y 5 0 : 6 M A R C H 2 0 0 7 433

process, it is likely teacher education institutionswill continue the ongoing transition to electronicportfolios. As new teachers enter the professionhaving completed electronic portfolios, it is likelystate departments of education will transitiontheir licensure portfolio requirements to electron-ic formats as well. School districts requiringteaching portfolios as part of periodic evaluationsshould follow suit, and we can easily imagine theNBPTS system moving in that direction as well.As a generation of teachers completes electronicportfolios at each stage of their careers, it is rea-sonable to assume they will demand similar sys-tems for the assessment of their students.

Noted communications scholar KathleenHall Jamieson observed, “An institutional genreperpetuates and insulates the institution” (1973,p. 165). Electronic portfolio assessment systemsmight be created in K–12 or higher education,and those systems might be used to evaluate stu-dents, teachers, or administrators. Regardless,those systems represent the creation of a new in-stitutional genre, and Jamieson’s claim that insti-tutional genres perpetuate institutions is worth

considering. For example, as colleges of educationface mounting criticism, to what extent does aportfolio assessment system of preservice teachersserve to maintain the status quo of the college?Without attempting to answer such a loadedquestion, it is worth noting that we are positionednot only to see the continued evolution and im-plementation of electronic portfolio systems, butalso to participate in shaping this emerging genre.

The contributions to this issue of theJournal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy offer aglimpse at how several talented educators areshaping the emerging electronic portfolio genre.Be sure to visit the online version of the journalto take full advantage of the dynamic examples ofelectronic portfolios. We hope you find theseworks useful.

REFERENCESBahktin, M.M. (1986). The problem of speech genres. In C.

Emerson & M. Holmquist (Eds.) & V.W. McGee

(Trans.), Speech genres and other late essays (pp. 60–102).

Austin: University of Texas Press.

Jamieson, K.M.H. (1973). Generic constraints and the

rhetorical situation. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 6, 162–170.

The electronic portfolio: Shaping an emerging genre

J O U R N A L O F A D O L E S C E N T & A D U L T L I T E R A C Y 5 0 : 6 M A R C H 2 0 0 7434