live webcasts

Schedule

Wednesday, September 19, 10 AM eastern time.
Thursday, September 27, 10 PM eastern time.
Wednesday, October 3, 10 AM eastern time.
Tuesday, October 16, 10 PM eastern time.
Wednesday, October 24, 10 am eastern time.
Wednesday, November 7, 10 pm eastern time.
Monday, November 19, noon eastern time

To tune in to our live webcast:

Option 1: An embedded YouTube player will appear on this page

Option 2: Watch via our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/modpopennvideo

Please note, the stream will be unavailable until several minutes before each scheduled event.

Webcast archive (available on YouTube): http://www.youtube.com/user/modpopennvideo/videos

suggestions for further reading - and glossary of terms

glossary

ballad meter link
imagism link
repetition link
sonnet link

fall 2012 week-by-week calendar

Chapters

week 1 (chapter 1) – Monday 9/10/12 through Sunday 9/16/12.

week 2 (chapter 1) – Monday 9/17/12 through Sunday 9/23/12.

week 3 (chapters 2.1 & 2.2) – Monday 9/24/12 through Sunday 9/30/12.

week 4 (chapters 2.3 & 2.4) – Monday 10/1/12 through Sunday 10/7/12.

week 5 (chapters 3, 4, 5, 6) – Monday 10/8/12 through Sunday 10/14/12.

week 6 (chapter 7) – Monday 10/15/12 through Sunday 10/21/12.

week 7 (chapter 8) – Monday 10/22/12 through Sunday 10/28/12.

week 8 (chapter 9.1) – Monday 10/29/12 through Sunday 11/4/12.

week 9 (chapter 9.2) – Monday 11/5/12 through Sunday 11/11/12.

week 10 (chapter 9.3) – Monday 11/12/12 through Sunday 11/18/12.

wrap-up day – Monday 11/19/12.

Assignments

In addition to completing weekly quizzes, all students will be asked to complete the following writing assignments.

Writing assignment #1: open for submission 9/17/12-9/23/12; peer evaluations 9/24/12-9/30/12.

Writing assignment #2: open for submission 10/1/12-10/7/12; peer evaluations 10/8/12-10/14/12.

Writing assignment #3: open for submission 10/22/12-10/28/12; peer evaluations 10/29/12-11/4/12.

Writing assignment #4: open for submission 11/5/12-11/11/12; peer evaluations 11/12/12-11/18/12.

Created Wed 6 Jun 2012 7:17:13 PM PDT
Last Modified Thu 6 Sep 2012 3:40:57 PM PDT

Peer Assessments

Title	Assignment starts	Submission deadline	Evaluation starts	Evaluation deadline
*Writing assignment 1: close reading a Dickinson poem*	*Sun 16 Sep 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*	*Sun 23 Sep 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*	*Sun 23 Sep 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*	*Sun 30 Sep 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*
*Writing assignment 2: two versions of an imagist poem by William Carlos Williams*	*Sun 30 Sep 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*	*Sun 7 Oct 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*	*Sun 7 Oct 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*	*Sun 14 Oct 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*
*Writing assignment 3: Frank O'Hara, "Why I Am Not a Painter"*	*Sun 21 Oct 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*	*Sun 28 Oct 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*	*Sun 28 Oct 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*	*Sun 4 Nov 2012 9:00:00 PM PST*
*Writing assignment 4: Choose ONE from The Mesostomatic or Bernadette Mayer Experiment*	*Sun 4 Nov 2012 9:00:00 PM PST*	*Sun 11 Nov 2012 9:00:00 PM PST*	*Sun 11 Nov 2012 9:00:00 PM PST*	*Sun 18 Nov 2012 9:00:00 PM PST*

Quizzes

chapter 1, week 1 - Whitman & Dickinson

On "Possibility" in Emily Dickinson’s “I dwell in Possibility”
Attempt Quiz Show Previous Attempts

Due Date: Sun 16 Sep 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT

Hard Deadline: Tue 18 Sep 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT

# of Attempts: 0 / 10

Effective Score: N/A

Last Attempted: N/A

Last Attempted Score: N/A
On the dash in Emily Dickinson’s “I dwell in Possibility”
Attempt Quiz Show Previous Attempts

Due Date: Sun 16 Sep 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT

Hard Deadline: Tue 18 Sep 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT

# of Attempts: 0 / 10

Effective Score: N/A

Last Attempted: N/A

Last Attempted Score: N/A

Due Date:	*Sun 16 Sep 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*
Hard Deadline:	*Tue 18 Sep 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*
# of Attempts:	*0 / 10*
Effective Score:	*N/A*
Last Attempted:	*N/A*
Last Attempted Score:	*N/A*

Due Date:	*Sun 16 Sep 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*
Hard Deadline:	*Tue 18 Sep 2012 9:00:00 PM PDT*
# of Attempts:	*0 / 10*
Effective Score:	*N/A*
Last Attempted:	*N/A*
Last Attempted Score:	*N/A*

fall 2012 week-by-week calendar

Chapters

week 1 (chapter 1) – Monday 9/10/12 through Sunday 9/16/12.

week 2 (chapter 1) – Monday 9/17/12 through Sunday 9/23/12.

week 3 (chapters 2.1 & 2.2) – Monday 9/24/12 through Sunday 9/30/12.

week 4 (chapters 2.3 & 2.4) – Monday 10/1/12 through Sunday 10/7/12.

week 5 (chapters 3, 4, 5, 6) – Monday 10/8/12 through Sunday 10/14/12.

week 6 (chapter 7) – Monday 10/15/12 through Sunday 10/21/12.

week 7 (chapter 8) – Monday 10/22/12 through Sunday 10/28/12.

week 8 (chapter 9.1) – Monday 10/29/12 through Sunday 11/4/12.

week 9 (chapter 9.2) – Monday 11/5/12 through Sunday 11/11/12.

week 10 (chapter 9.3) – Monday 11/12/12 through Sunday 11/18/12.

wrap-up day – Monday 11/19/12.

Assignments

In addition to completing weekly quizzes, all students will be asked to complete the following writing assignments.

Writing assignment #1: open for submission 9/17/12-9/23/12; peer evaluations 9/24/12-9/30/12.

Writing assignment #2: open for submission 10/1/12-10/7/12; peer evaluations 10/8/12-10/14/12.

Writing assignment #3: open for submission 10/22/12-10/28/12; peer evaluations 10/29/12-11/4/12.

Writing assignment #4: open for submission 11/5/12-11/11/12; peer evaluations 11/12/12-11/18/12.

Created Wed 6 Jun 2012 7:17:13 PM PDT
Last Modified Thu 6 Sep 2012 3:40:57 PM PDT

audio introduction to week 1 - te

Note: This summary was prepared voluntarily by Barbara McKenzie, a ModPo student.

ModPo: Chapter I, Week 1: material covered: a few selected poems by Emily Dickinson & Whitman’s “Song of Myself” (many sections)

Chapter 1, Week 2: contemporary Dickinsonians (people writing in the Dickinson tradition) & several key people in the Whitmanian line, mainly William Carlos Williams and Allen Ginsberg.

At the end of each week for the first two weeks there will be a video recording of a discussion about preferences for either Whitman or Dickinson. This is just a chance to air out distinctions and differences between these two poets. It’s a silly binarism, there is no need to choose one over the other but it’s useful when looking at proto-modernism and these two remarkable (and in their own way radical) poets to think of them as distinct enough to state a preferences for one or the other: Whitman, an extensive poet, Dickinson an intensive poet, Whitman a poet of long lines, Dickinson a poet of succinct, short, pithy, torqued aphorisms as lines; Dickinson mostly using the ballad form, Whitman using free verse, etc.

After the first week you’ll see us talk about differences between these two poets -- the point to invite you to participate in a discussion of these two proto-modernists using the discussion forum to continue that debate.

Discussion forums: this is where most of the action will take place in ModPo and I hope you will go to it now while you are reading this , click to the discussion forums and you’ll see that currently there are a series of sub-forums. These are the major places or sites where we will talk:

There will always be a forum for the current week discussions
There will be a spot for general discussions where we can talk about poetry generally – or about anything else you want to talk about
The instructor/TA’s forum -- we may or may not stick with this but the idea is to create a space where it is easy for you (in a class of 30,000 people) to find what your instructor and the TAs are saying (these can get lost in the larger forums) so you can see the specific comments of your instructors. Students can’t post here so you will be able to easily find what the instructors and TAs are saying by way of guidance or in answering questions.
Study groups: your chance to plan to meet up, to find linguistic / geographical affinities, get to know each other, and I hope there will be many study groups formed .
Subforums for discussions of previous chapters: if you click there after the first week you will see that the week-to-week forums will be made into sub-forums so you will be able to continue discussing (we didn’t want the old weeks to clutter up the current forum).

If you click on Week 1/Discussion 1 discussing Dickinson/Whitman you’ll notice that we have set up sub-forums for each of the poems we will discuss and a general forum for discussing Whitman & Dickinson in general. We hope that you will help us by semi-organizing your responses to the material and the video presentations by posting in the appropriate place.

Week 2 you will be able to see the main syllabus schedule for the entire course but we won’t be linking the videos until the week arrives. So next week you will see the videos in addition to the links to the sound files of the poems (these will be our first sound files because of course Dickinson and Whitman were not recorded) so in week 2 you will hear sound recorded in the Penn Sound Archive. In addition to that, there will be the text of the poems and the video on each poem.

Next week also will be the first of our four short essay assignments, where you will be asked to write a close reading of a Dickinson poem that we have not discussed. You will have all week to write that short close-reading essay & to submit it .

Week 3: you will be invited to spend much of that week writing comments on each other’s essays and I and the ModPo TAs will participate in this by creating guides & templates and models for to help in your evaluation. There will be much more about the ModPo essays later this week in a separate announcement.

Also in Week 1 there will be two short quiz questions – we don’t take these as seriously as a science or technology or medicine course because in an open ended course on literature it is not easy to formulate definitive answers to questions. These quizzes are intended to be very straight forward, intended to help you get the concepts raised in the video discussions & to help you check your own understanding of concepts described in the videos

If you want to “complete” the course you will have to 1) complete the four essays, 2) participate in the commenting on others' essays, 3) take and “pass” the quizzes, and of course, 4) to participate in the discussion forums.

WELCOME TO WEEK 1 OF MODPO.

Home > Poems & Poets > I dwell in Possibility – (466)

I dwell in Possibility – (466)

BY EMILY DICKINSON

I dwell in Possibility –

A fairer House than Prose –

More numerous of Windows –

Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise –

Reprinted electronically by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983, 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson Edited by R. W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)