idea: toolbox portfolio

Determine six (?) skills I want them to master. Create a portfolio for each one, showing student's progress; design lesson plans to produce work around each one. Call the skills "tools" and keep the six portfolios in a "toolbox" for each student.

Possible "tools:"

• analyze primary souirces
• determine perspective
• support an argument with evidence
• understand an author's point
• etc.

Could divide tools into 3 & 3 - 3 reading skills, 3 writing skills; or, 3 input, 3 output, so I could include different kinds of analysis and production skills.

Rationale: to help students understand why they're doing what they're doing, that they're practicing skills of genuine practical utility.