Division III at Hampshire

It might be that when you would do a smaller project, say for a course, you could read or engage with visual pieces and then write or create your own piece in a number of hours over a few days – you might have remembered much of what you read or thought when you viewed a piece of work and could incorporate those ideas in your writing. DON’T TRY THIS IN DIV III.

You are doing a sustained project and your thinking will change as you engage with new sources. Yet, your most powerful writing and thinking will be right as you read a new piece or see a new piece of art for the first time. WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU READ AND SEE WHEN YOUR IDEAS ARE UNFOLDING. That is how you can get power into your writing.

So, read and then write about that piece – read and write, read and write. Even stop and write as you read – what is this author/artist saying? How does it connect to what I already know and believe? What questions does this raise? How is it similar or different from what another author/artist said or did?

You are not writing a Div III at this moment. You are writing about ideas in order to get at what you will ultimately want to say. Eventually, you will be ready to write across the pieces you are producing and you can use some of what you wrote in these small pieces. They will have more power and detail than what you would have been able to recollect later – and you won’t have to go back and find the article, chapter, book, where you found that idea (go to the October 17th workshop in the library on managing your research). Even if you have a Div III that is an artistic production of some sort, you want to track your ideas as you have them.

Besides writing when ideas are fresh and capturing the appropriate detail, reading and writing right away means you will never suffer from having a blank page! Plus, you can set a goal for yourself about how many pieces you can read and write about in a week. You can share that writing with your committee and they can engage with the ideas with you – helping you think about what else to read and how to focus your thinking.

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It can be difficult to get yourself to the library, to a coffee shop where you like to work, or even to your own desk. The social environment often exerts a stronger pull. So — ask a friend along. Make dates for working along side a friend. You don’t have to be working on the same topic.

Making work dates also holds you accountable for the time – the time you plan to get to your workplace, and the amount of time you will work before taking a short break together.

Work does not have to be isolating. It can be the reason to get together. Invite someone today!

It can be difficult to actually meet your deadline if you don’t have one. Div III is likely larger than any project you have ever done before. It requires many smaller deadlines that build to a final product.

By now, you might know fairly well what you want to produce by May (or by December). You can do a backwards plan for the whole of your Div III or just for this semester. Since a Div III is big and it really gets done in pieces, I am going to suggest starting with a backwards plan for the fall.

First, talk to your Div III chair/committee about your goals for the semester – what do you want to complete? (You might have already done this – so you are ready for step two).

Second, create a calendar working backwards from, say, December 11^th (the last day of classes for the fall semester and the due date for faculty progress reports). Write the dates for submission to your committee of completed works, drafts or pilot pieces. Having deadlines for each piece holds you accountable to yourself and to your committee.

Third, check with your committee about whether your calendar is reasonable, doable, and see whether they suggest any alterations. Your calendar might have dates not only for your work, but for when your committee will give feedback on your pieces.

You will come to a revolving door kind of period, where they are reading and giving feedback while you are drafting, composing, creating the next part.