Annotated
Bibliography of
Student Work
The ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF STUDENT WORK is a supplement to your
SELF-REFLECTION ESSAY. In your Self-Reflection, you’re making an argument about
your progress using specific evidence from your experience as a reader and writer at
San José State University. In your Annotated Bibliography, you’re describing that
specific evidence.
At a minimum, your Annotated Bibliography should include and explain (briefly) your
CRITICAL ESSAY and the MAJOR ASSIGNMENT from your class. But it should also
include any other work you refer to as evidence in your Self-Reflection. This will likely
include:
■ writing assignments
■ activities you’ve done in your writing class (such as
brainstorming exercises, peer review workshops, or
editing activities)
■ even writing you’ve done in other classes or outside of
class
The point is to describe the evidence you refer to in your reflection in enough detail so a
person who wasn’t in your class or doesn’t know anything about the activity or
assignment can understand what you’re referring to.
Note: You do not need to include actual written work (the assignment or other writing),
but you should describe it for an audience that may not know what you’re talking about.
Below is an example you can use as a template. You can also download a PDF version
by clicking here
下载 You can also download a PDF version by clicking here
.
Annotated Bibliography of Student Work [EXAMPLE]
Main Portfolio Essays
Reflection on College Writing Critical Essay
Title: “What the Heck is Critical Anyway?”
This essay is the critical essay I wrote for the RCW; it demonstrates my earliest attempt
to address a specific audience and to use my reading as part of my writing; it is a draft,
not a revised essay.
Argumentative Essay from English 2 [this can be any major assignment from the
writing class you’re producing this portfolio for]
Title: “Kids These Days”
This was the last major writing assignment in my English 2 class. It has been revised,
and it demonstrates my ability to make an academic argument, do research, use
evidence, and respond to feedback to improve a draft.
Supporting Documents
Document 1: Narrative activity
I used this prewriting exercise to discover the main points and some of the evidence
that I used to develop my research essay about how marsupials build community in the
wild. I actually interviewed a zookeeper at Happy Hollow Zoo about koalas, but it was
hard for me to decide how I could write a paper about what I learned from the interview.
This activity helped me get all my ideas out so I could start to select the important ones
for my essay.
Document 2: Peer review exercises
We did peer review in almost every class with small pieces of writing. The ones I’m
referring to here are samples of feedback I received from other classmates and my
instructor that I used to revise my profile essay about One Direction’s former lead
singer, Harry Styles.
Document 3: Personal Archive
In my class, the instructor had us develop a personal archive of writing (ours or other
peoples’) that is meaningful to us, which we then reflected on for our final essay. My
archive included things I wrote in high school, poems that I love, some songs, and a
note from my mom about how proud she was of me when I graduated from high school.
Even though these were personal artifacts, this assignment helped me understand how
my writing is in conversation with other writing by speaking to similar ideas and
borrowing from what I’ve learned.
Document 4: Personal Essay Rough Draft
Title: “Ancestors and Elders: Writing and Responsibility to My Community”
This essay is a personal essay about how I see my writing and education in relation to
my literacy sponsors and community of support. I wrote about the responsibility I have
to my ancestors and elders who both guided me and invested in me to get to college.
On the early draft, we did an editing exercise to help us make decisions about revision.
The editing exercise taught me to read my paper backwards, sentence by sentence; this
strategy allows me to see more errors because I see each sentence in isolation.
Document 5: Prewriting and Notes for Midyear Self-Reflection Essay
These prewriting exercises and notes have prepared me to write the draft of the essay
you are reading today. My professor had us start practicing writing drafts of the
Self-Reflection after our first essay so we would be prepared at the end of the semester.
We did the same activity after each essay. Together they demonstrate my process,
using reading and writing to prepare me to compose my own argument.
