Category: kristine

While reading through “Portfolio Keeping,” I was reminded of when I had to make a research portfolio for my AP Research class last year. This class requires you to do a year-long research project, which all culminates into a 20-minute oral presentation and a 5000-word research paper. This was one of the most academically intensive classes I had ever taken in high school because the whole process of doing a research project was new to me. But once I had submitted all of my finished work to College Board, I was told to make a portfolio of the research process. Luckily, I had stayed very organized throughout the year and labeled every document I had ever made for the project and kept them in a folder labeled “AP Research.” Therefore, it was easy to gather any straggling materials and officially put my portfolio together.

At the beginning of the year, my teacher suggested we keep a journal and take a few minutes after every class to write about our progress. Since I regularly keep a diary, I found that this would be a great way for me to keep track of my progress and to rant about anything stress-inducing (which was pretty much all of it). This journal ended up being my best resource when putting together my final portfolio. I made this journal the central hub of my portfolio and I could refer to it any time I needed to know what I did on a specific date (I labeled each entry with a date). It also served as a reference for my portfolio evaluator (in this case, my teacher) because whenever I mentioned working on a specific document, my teacher could go back into my folder and view it as needed.

All in all, I enjoyed the process of making this portfolio and even viewing it after I’ve finished the whole project. I had never done a project like this before, so this organized documentation makes me feel proud of all I accomplished in AP Research. I hope that whatever portfolio we create for this class will be just as exciting to me. I do know that I can refer back to my prior experience of making a portfolio when creating a new one in the future.

I was at a Girl Scout camping trip and my group had to make our camp gate out of poles and ropes. This was an activity that required teamwork to be successful. What made it work was assigning roles to specific people so that everyone knew what they were supposed to do. If there were no roles, then either everyone would try to jump in with a specific job, or nobody would jump in. As an example, someone could hold the poles together, while another person lashed the poles together with rope. It was necessary to have at least one person stabilizing the poles otherwise the lashings would become very difficult and could end up loose. So even if holding the poles together seemed like an easy job, it was still an essential one. Although it may seem peculiar, one of the jobs was to tighten the rope every time the lasher wrapped it around the poles. This was to ensure that the lashing was at its absolute tightest. We could also take turns lashing and stabilizing the poles so that different people could have the opportunity to try different jobs. When it came to that time, someone could drive a stake into the ground and tie the rope to it to add extra stability. All while several other people were supporting the gate by its foundations, of course. By giving everyone a specific job, we were able to get the work done efficiently and successfully.