Current interest in portfolio assessment and its widespread use (Farr and Tone, 1994) is based on the capability of this approach to engage learners in self evaluation and personal literacy goal setting. When learners' literacy activity is varied, with opportunity for learner choice of activity, evaluation will not be limited to teacher-determined, narrow criteria of what are correct or incorrect responses. With portfolio approaches instructor and learner are better able to focus on learner thinking, communicating purposes for meaningful literacy activity in a context which values learner judgment.

In our ABE class settings, learners were encouraged to maintain portfolios where they were able to store their work as they continued to develop ideas or revise earlier drafts. Portfolios are suitable for reading, listening, and speaking activities, as well as a wide range of writing samples. Thus, portfolios may contain records of books read, audiotapes, as well as drawings, photos, and so on.

A key to successful maintenance of portfolios is conducting regular individual conferences with students. This is most critical in the early months when portfolios have first been introduced. During these conferences the literacy practitioner guides the learner to self reflection and critical thinking about literacy activities through questioning.

Farr and Tone (1994) have suggested that use of a schematic (see Figure 3) can assist learners to use questioning during conferencing so that they may later use a similar format for self questioning during personal portfolio review. Practitioners might first introduce the idea with a group discussion on how to use self questions during reading and writing so that this can become a habit later on.

It is a good idea to model how you use self questioning when reading and writing. Students appreciate personal experiences on the everyday difficulties in making sense of what we read and write. We found that this discussion engaged learners to make up their own self questions which were meaningful, and the class usually enjoys creating a visual cue to accompany each of the key questions. Later conference notes using these visual cues will also prompt student self questioning during conferencing.