Portfolio Building: The relationship with literacies in students’ everyday lives

Abstract

This article explores some propositions about how students’ everydaylives may interact with their success at learning in a large Further EducationCollege in England. Some students, on paper, have all the appropriate entryqualifications, but still struggle to complete their courses. Indeed, some donot complete at all. So, what could be done to help these students achievesuccess? As a member of a large-scale research project team, I have beeninvestigating the home literacies of further education students. Papen(2005a:14) points out that ‘it is useful and necessary before any interventioncan be planned, to carry out research which identifies learners’ everydayliteracy practices’. Of course, there are many other aspects of people’severyday lives that will influence their learning success. However, in thisarticle I want to focus on the possibility of the influence of home literacypractices, by exploring how the reading and writing in the everyday lives ofstudents could be drawn upon and utilized in order to help these students tosucceed on their chosen college courses.