Guidelines for Spanish Senior Portfolio
You should begin work on your senior portfolio as early as possible, but ideally during your junior year before or immediately following your off-campus study experience (if applicable). The process of elaborating and presenting your portfolio records your progress in the Spanish language, demonstrates your cross-cultural awareness between products, practices and perspectives of Hispanic cultures, and displays your ability to make connections across disciplines. The portfolio is initially elaborated in consultation with your Spanish advisor (identified upon declaration of the major), however since the project continues over the course of 2-3 semesters you should feel free to consult and share work and ideas with various members of the department faculty. To aid in the initial preparation of the portfolio, if you decide to purse this option, you are required to attend a workshop offered during the first weeks of fall semester each year.
All portfolios submitted to the department in fulfillment of the Spanish major must be based on the prebuilt department electronic template (webpage), and consist of the following parts (adapted from Global Language Portfolio):
- Welcome Page: a brief-self introduction and overview of portfolio contents
- Biography: a summary of individual Spanish learning experience at Bates, off-campus and in the community, and a self-assessment in the 5 skill areas: listening, reading, writing, spoken production and spoken interaction.
- Dossier: a presentation of evidence of Spanish communication skills in the following three areas (must provide at least one item for each): presentational (speaking and writing), interpretative (reading, listening and viewing) and interpersonal; items in this section may include, but are not limited to the following: class papers, photographs, creative writing, blogs, and videos.
- Reflection: a personal statement that includes self-assessment of strengths and weakness in Spanish, insights into cultural products, practices and perspectives of Hispanic cultures, and reflections upon various learning experiences; the statement must be grammatically correct, well-organized, and demonstrate capacity to synthesize experience as a Spanish major.
You must decide whether to pursue the portfolio option by the end of short-term of your junior year. In consultation with your advisor, you may decide to convert your portfolio into a thesis, but under no circumstances shall a thesis be abandoned in order to pursue portfolio option after the start of fall semester senior year.
Finished portfolios are due by the eighth week of your final semester at Bates. In order to fully assessment of your communication skills and evaluate your portfolio overall, you will be invited by the department faculty to make an oral presentation highlighting the content of your project sometime during the last two weeks of your last semester.
The portfolio will be read and evaluated by the entire faculty in terms of the following criteria:
- content and evidence
- language use (accuracy and style)
- process (development and editing)
Sample Spanish Portafolios:
- Patrick Tolosky, ’15
- Catherine Tuttle, ’13