Thanks, Chuck, for your very informative historical account of how portfolio
assessment has been developed in US. I had a suspicion that it should to do
something with job market (and not with intrinsic work of artist). I become
more and more convinced that it is mainly a tool for negotiation among
communities about resources and support rather something to do inherently
with learning and guiding. I know that you are working on the phenomenon of
accountability (I read your article in Mind, Culture, and Activity). Would
my conclusion fly with your research? How do you consider assessment
divorced from practices?
Take care,
Eugene
PS I can't remember much because I'm a 10-year old immigrant in the US.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles Bazerman [mailto:bazerman@humanitas.ucsb.edu]
> Sent: Friday, February 26, 1999 12:53 PM
> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: just a little more portfolio assessment
>
>
> To add a bit of historical complexity to the portfolio assessment
> discussion, I remember that in the early seventies when the idea of
> portfolios began floating around writing people in CUNY, the idea was
> specifically associated with the portfolios of artists, photographers,
> advertising execs, actors, etc. who prepared portfolios to represent
> their talents, in pursuit of work. This certainly seems an activity
> embedded form of self-presentation and assessment. An important link in
> making this association was the portfolios prepared by art students,
> photography students, etc. during their final year in preparation for
> entering the job market. This idea then further migrated into the bowels
> of the educational system. What happens in these migrations and
> transformations may be problematic and worth examining in detail, but the
> origin of the idea was precisely in embedded activity in non-academic work
> systems.
>
> Since I am now at the age when I remember more than I think, let me turn
> Eugene's question around--what do you remember?
>
> Chuck
>