Frequently asked questions about the first-stage writing portfolio
All degree-seeking students at Oxy have a Two-Stage Writing Proficiency requirement. The First-Stage should be completed before advancing to the Second-Stage requirement in your major. The portfolio system of assessment is designed to assess writing you completed in your FYS (which is a course focused on college-level writing), and it gives you a chance to reflect on your writing and your writing process. See: College Writing Requirements.
Portfolios are due on March 1 before 5:00 p.m. No exceptions. If you do not submit the portfolio on time or do not include all of the required materials, you will automatically receive an assessment determination of “Not Completed” and will be required to take and earn a grade of C or higher in CWP 201: The Art of Essay Writing in order to complete the First-Stage Writing Requirement.
You will need to submit three essays written in your FYS courses. You will also include a Reflective Introduction Essay (RIE) written for the portfolio. See the complete Portfolio Guide for more information about the criteria for the three FYS essays and the RIE.
The total word count for all of the docs (including Works Cited/References/Bibliography) is 5,000-6,000 words. This total word count includes the Reflective Introduction Essay (RIE), which must be around 750 words. If your total word count is much shorter (less than 4,500 words) or longer (more than 6,500 words) please explain why (briefly) in your RIE. Include the word count for EACH essay on the top of the first page for each essay submitted (including the RIE).
Yes.
Start by talking to your FYS instructor. They can give you guidance on which essays from their course reflect your most effective writing and which meet the criteria. You can also email the Writing Program Director, Professor Terry, if you still have general questions about what to submit: lterry@oxy.edu. Finally, the Writing Center can also help you decide if your essays are aligned with the Portfolio criteria – and can help you revise!
Each portfolio is read by at least two trained faculty assessors. Assessors use the Portfolio Assessment Rubric (the same rubric on the last page of the Portfolio Guide) in assessing the writing submitted. In cases where the initial two assessors disagree on the decision of “Meets Proficiency” or “201 Required,” an additional assessor will read the portfolio (and the Writing Program Director will review) to adjudicate and reach the final decision. Note: Portfolios are anonymized when you submit them, so assessors do not see student names or other identifying information.
You will upload your essays as one PDF file electronically to a designated Canvas site. The Canvas site will appear in your dashboard of Canvas courses as: First-Stage Writing Portfolio 2025.
We have designed this site to make it easy for you to upload your Portfolio. If you encounter difficulty uploading your documents, please visit the ITS helpdesk (Library: second floor). Note: do not wait until the last minute to start uploading your file to Canvas! The Canvas site will close to submissions promptly at 5:00pm (so you should plan to upload at least a few minutes prior).
Yes. While you may be writing papers in other classes, we need to keep the assessment as equitable as possible by reading only essays from FYS, which is designated as a writing course at the college.
For the Portfolio, a scholarly source is any “text” assigned to you in your FYS course, or that you found through research for your FYS. The source might be a critical article, a literary work, a film, an artwork, etc.
You should definitely use the first-person pronoun in your portfolio to describe your writing knowledge, your writing process, and to reflect on your strengths and areas for improvement as a writer. Remember: the reflective essay is the first text readers will review in your portfolio, and it guides the through the essays that follow. An effective RIE will share qualities with stronger academic writing: sharp analysis, a clear sense of audience and perspective, a recognizable organizational structure, and an attention to sentence-level clarity and the mechanics of writing. By design it should be both personal and persuasive; inflated self-promotion is rarely persuasive to a thoughtful reader. We recommend that you refrain from being too informal and that you take the RIE seriously.
You’ll need to briefly describe each of your three FYS papers and the process you engaged in writing these essays. You’ll also need to use these essays to contextualize your writing overall, your writing progress, your writing process, and your writing knowledge. There are specific requirements for the RIE in the Portfolio Guide – so be sure to read this section carefully.
No. The Canvas system will close for submissions promptly at 5:00 p.m.
We don’t think of the portfolio assessment as a “pass” vs. “fail.” Instead, we believe that ALL writers have more to learn. If the assessment of your portfolio results in a decision of “Meets Proficiency,” you have “Completed” the First-Stage Writing Proficiency requirement (as long as you pass both of your FYS courses with grades of “S”). This determination does NOT suggest that there are no areas for improvement in your writing, but indicates that the writing in your portfolio exhibits the baseline features and skills necessary for likely success in upper-division writing-intensive courses at Oxy (in alignment with the Portfolio Rubric). Just as a Completed assessment does not indicate writing mastery, a Not Completed assessment is not a condemnation of your writing or thinking. Should your portfolio receive a final assessment of “201 Required” and the First-Stage requirement is “Not Completed,” you will need to successfully take (passing with a letter grade of C or higher) CWP 201: The Art of Essay Writing in your sophomore year. Information about CWP 201 including descriptions of the many topics offered can be found in the college catalog.
Yes, absolutely. You can revise your essays before submitting them in the Portfolio Canvas site. If you bring your essays to the Writing Center, you can talk about doing so as part of your writing-revision process in your RIE. The Writing Center also offers numerous forms of support during the Portfolio process such as Workshops, Write-ins, Info Tables on the Quad, Emails, and more resources announced on the Writing Center Instagram (oxywritingcenter).
You will receive notification of the final assessment of your portfolio by the first day of advising week in spring semester. This timeline ensures that you have information about your First-Stage Writing Proficiency requirement before registration, so you can plan to fit CWP 201 into your schedule if needed. Once the assessment process is completed, you will be able to see your “Writing Placement Results” in your Grades and Academic Records portal (though MyOxy).
Feel free to stop by the Writing Center on the ground floor in the Academic Commons, email Professor Terry, or stop by the Core Program Office on the main floor in Johnson Hall.