ModPo: time to review essays on Dickinson together

It’s now time for us, all together, to respond to the essays that have been submitted for essay #1 on Emily Dickinson’s four-line poem “Love reckons by itself—alone.”

The poem and assignment are HERE.

The essays submitted by ModPo people are all posted here to this subforum. (To find this subforum in the site: click on “Discussion forums” in the left-side menu, then click on the forum called “essay assignments & peer reviews,” then click on the subforum at right called “essay #1—on Dickinson.”)

To write a review/response/comment on an essay, pick out any essay among all those you’ll find in the essay #1 subforum and post your comments as a “reply” to the thread. Each essay is its own thread. Please subscribe to the thread (click “follow this discussion”) so that you can continue the conversation if the essayist replies to your review.

When you look at the list of essays (the list of threads on the essay #1 subforum page) you will see, to the right of the thread title, two numbers—one for number of views that thread has received, and the other for the number of replies posted. If the number of replies is “0,” then you know it’s an essay that needs a review. We hope that every essay submitted will have received at least 4 replies by the end of week 3.

If you scroll to the bottom of the first subforum page, you will see the number of pages. If you click on the highest page numbers (the highest number is currently “11”) you will see essays “at the back of the queue,” those that very likely have received no reviews, or few.

If you are hoping to receive a ModPo certificate of completion, one of your requirements is to write peer reviews of at least four others’ essays for each of the four assignments. Your peer reviews should include substantive comments (obviously not one-word or one-phrase praise such as “Good!” or “Good essay!”).

If you did not yourself submit an essay, we still very much hope you will read the Dickinson poem and then read and comment upon others’ essays. The essayists will be grateful!

If you are receiving this message but have not yet re-joined ModPo this season, please consider clicking HERE in order to read and comment on essays!

Try to respond to others’ essays as positively and constructively as you can. ModPo is ungraded and non-credit; supportive suggestions for improvement, and of course praise for good points, will be welcomed by the essayists.

Advice to those who submitted essays: find your essay and be sure that you have subscribed to that thread. If you “follow” the thread, you will receive email notifications whenever anyone posts a review of it. Then you can respond to the response. If you can’t find your essay, use the search box near the top of any discussion forum page and search for keywords in your essay’s title or a string of words you used in the essay.

Thank you, everyone, for collaboratively reviewing our essays. Dickinson’s remarkable poems deserve this kind of attention—the focus of many minds across the world.