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I had trouble thinking of an artifact that would demonstrate my competency and strengths as a reader. So I figured I'd check my bookshelf to see if any of my books could give me a hint. When I opened a few, I noticed immediately that I had tabs on many pages, and had annotated key passages. When I saw that, it reaffirmed for me what I knew, I am a good reader, and I do practice effective reading strategies. So, I took a photo of one of the pages.

How this strategy helps you as a learner/teacher
This example is from a novel that I read as a part of my undergrad. When I teach students about reading skills, I teach them about annotation, so it's nice to see that this is something that I've been practicing for a while, and can model for my students. Annotation is extremely helpful, because it documents your thinking about what you're reading. It serves as a visual reminder for important parts, or questions that you may have. This strategy has served me really well in my undergrad, B.Ed. and especially in my Masters when I was reading hundreds of pages per day during my literature review.

This artifact demonstrates my growth, because I was never a really strong reader in school. I had ADHD, so unless I was super interested in the story (in which case, I'd just devour the text), it was really hard for my to focus on reading. Annotating helps me stay focused and engaged because I'm constantly interacting with the text, and have the goal of demonstrating my thinking in mind.

My next steps in terms of my reading skills would be to further model annotation to students. I know that it's a really great reading strategy, and I'd like to do more of it in class, live. I know that there are overhead cameras that I can get that can project a video of me showing my annotation process with texts, so that might be something I'd like to do so further model and promote this reading strategy with my students.

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For my graduating class (2018) in the B.Ed. program at the University of Ottawa, I was selected to be the co-valedictorian. I chose this artifact because it is another proud moment for me. As mentioned, I'm a first generation graduate for post-secondary education. So, I take a lot of pride in this accomplishment.

This experience taught me how to improve my oral communication skills. I worked on pacing, memorization (which is really not my strong suit), modulation, and having a sort of presence you'd expect from a presenter.

Though it might be hard to believe because I'm teacher, but I'm quite the introverted and shy person. Public speaking is definitely not on the top of my list of fun things to do. But, it was quite the honour and experience to be the valedictorian. I rose to the challenge. I stepped out of my comfort zone, and gained a lot of confidence as a result of giving this speech in front of thousands of people, so I'd say it was definitely a helpful experience to help me improve my oral communication skills.

In terms of next steps when it comes to oral communication skills, I'd like to continue to improve my teaching practice by being a good storyteller. I find that I'm most interested by people speaking when they are telling a story. As such, I would like to become a more effective storyteller to keep my students interested in my teaching and perhaps make my lessons more engaging and relevant.

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Artifact #2: Valedictorian Speech (Oral Communication)

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Artifact #2: Valedictorian Speech (Oral Communication)

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Welcome to my Literacy Portfolio. Here I have chosen to show you three artifacts that represent my strengths as a reader, writer, and oral communicator.

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I chose this artifact because this was a really big deal for me. I'm the first person in my family to attend university, let alone complete a Master's Degree. This was a huge undertaking for me, with many challenges, but I am so proud of the work that I did. Writing my thesis really challenged me as a reader and writer.

Through writing my thesis, I learned a lot about the importance of clearly stating my research design. It pushed me to think deeply and critically about my topic in a way that I don't think I would have otherwise if it weren't for this challenge.

Completing my thesis helped me become a better reader, and a better writer. Now that I've conducted research, I feel that I have a much better understanding of research more generally. I can think more critically about methodologies; and I finally understand what a conceptual framework is. I've also never written this much in my life. I learned a lot about the importance of the writing process, especially the revision and editing steps.

I think that my next steps in terms of being an effective writer, are to continue to keep in mind everything that I've learned in this process, particularly the importance of editing, and revising your work, including peer editing. I had a great thesis committee who gave me a lot of valuable feedback after they read my work. Although it's sometimes tough to be vulnerable and let others critique your work, for me it was essential in pushing me to where I needed to be to create a good thesis.