A message for new ModPo people

by Al Filreis · May 19, 2020

If you are new to ModPo, this is the message for you. Please read, click links, and ask ANY questions you might have by writing us at modpo@writing.upenn.edu.

Yes, many people have joined ModPo for the first time in the past few months. It seems that some 10,000 people are new. Or perhaps some of them are ModPo veterans, returning to us after some years away. Welcome to everyone!

The first thing to know is that ModPo is open all year, and is always free. We are currently in what we call our “SloPo” season. Each autumn (early September through mid-November) we host what we call the “symposium mode” of ModPo. That means we all together move through the ten weeks of the course, week by week. For new participants this generally means that you will follow the main syllabus week by week, from week 1 on Dickinson and Whitman through week 10 on uncreativity, procedural writing, and conceptualism. For people who have been through the main syllabus previously and/or want more than that fairly set syllabus, there’s ModPoPLUS. ModPoPLUS is supplement, optional, extra, a deep look into each week. I highly recommend ModPoPLUS as an area of our course you can explore any time, and not necessarily in any particular order.

Here is perhaps the most important thing you can do now as a ModPo new-timer: go to the left-side menu you will see on most ModPo pages, and click on RESOURCES. Click every link there in that submenu. Explore everything at least briefly. See what’s there. We have been building up resources, and refining them, since 2012 when ModPo was first offered as a massive open online course. You could spend years just going through all the videos.

And check our modpo.org .

During the symposium mode, we host live interactive webcasts each Wednesday—eleven of them in total (including our annual, celebratory “Final Words” webcast on the Monday after week 10.

We are live. We are in the present. We are real. The ModPo team is actively involved in the course in the present. Here is a short list of ways to interact with us and with each other:

weekly office hours, held by TAs and by me
discussion forums (of course)
during webcasts
emails to modpo@writing.upenn.edu
attending meet-ups hosted by me and/or by TAs
participating in Zoom sessions

We don’t believe it’s enough to put online a bunch of resources and leave them there, hoping people find them and will figure out how to deal with them. No, we want to be there as much as possible when you grapple with the challenging poems in the syllabus.

Below are some links that you will find useful. The schedule of ModPo 2020 webcasts is also below.

And ask us questions — modpo@writing.upenn.edu .

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USEFUL LINKS:

ModPo Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/modpo/

ModPo on twitter: https://twitter.com/ModPoPenn

ModPo YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3CxqOg-Bp0FNtP3b7-tdXw

Teacher Resource Center (TRC): https://www.coursera.org/learn/modpo/resources/Bk1lh

PoemTalk (our monthly podcast): https://jacket2.org/content/poem-talk

A sample live webcast: https://youtu.be/ZfdoJz5kU1I

3 introductory videos: https://www.coursera.org/learn/modpo/resources/O0K44

ModPo people give you a tour of the Kelly Writers House: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxh4wJqgtdQ&t=36s