Dear Emily Dickinson students,

Since you are doing another scansion as part of your explication (Weekly Writing 6) for this Tuesday, I want to go ahead and give you some feedback on the scansions you submitted for WW5.

(1) The foundation of a good scansion is correctly determining the number of syllables in each word. If you can’t tell by “sounding out” a word, look it up in the dictionary.

(2) At the top of the scansion page, identify the poem’s overall metrical pattern. For example, “Common meter: quatrains of iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter, with metrical variations.”

(3) From now on, rather than labeling all of the types of feet in each line (as shown on the model scansions), just highlight or circle and label the feet that constitute metrical variations, those that deviate from the poem’s overall metrical pattern. (In most poems, these will be the feet that are not iambic.)

(4) On the scansion page, as shown on the model scansion for #1540, label all approximate rhymes (also called slant rhymes, near rhymes, or eye rhymes).

(5) When you discuss meter and metrical variations in your explication, be sure to quote the words or phrases you’re referring to. Also it is helpful to the reader if you write or type the symbols for accented and unaccented syllables ABOVE these quoted words or phrases within your explication.

If you’ve already completed your scansion and explication, don’t worry about following the above suggestions to the letter. Please let me know if you have questions.

Keep up the good work!

John Mercer