I've taken a bunch of MOOCs, mostly technical. Only one involved writing "proper essays" (The Modern and the Postmodern, Wesleyan University) but it was one of

I've taken a bunch of MOOCs, mostly technical. Only one involved writing "proper essays" (The Modern and the Postmodern, Wesleyan University) but it was one of the best courses I've ever taken. There was a lot of peer assessment, but a) Peer assessment is actually amazing for the graders (reading other students' work, and providing feedback), and b) It can work well enough for the gradees if you're careful. The tricks to making it work depend on - Having enough people grade each paper (involves making your grade depend on your grading), - Having some TAs grading or having some sample papers of known quality to provide "ground truth" values, - Trusting the grades of "trustworthy" graders (an eigenvalue problem), - Trusting the grades of "good" students. That said, I've looked at some other humanities classes and been scared away by poorly constructed multiple-choice quizzes, so it does take effort to get it right. (Might only work for introductory/survey courses, though.)