Responding to the counteragument using academic templates

"I know what to do, but I just don't know how to do it." A common frustration in any writing class.

In these last few weeks of the semester, my upper-level writing class and I writing argumentative research papers. This assignment is pushing them to exercise new skills such as developing their own organizational outline, and encouraging them to respond to critics of their own positions.

I say "we" because I am doing this along with my students. In conjunction with the L2WRG (Second Language Writing Research Group), a few other researchers and I are "responding" to a recent debate in error correction. As my class and I discuss how to respond to research, it means as much to them as it does to me.

So how does an instructor teach how to write an argumentative research paper? Good question, and I wish I knew; this university - for all the emphasis that it places on writing - offers few courses on the teaching of writing. But despite my lack of training, I have done my best to pick up writing-pedagogy professional development opportunities. One such opportunity was a Writing Matters Seminar (sponsored by the university writing initiative) with a guest speaker who recently wrote the "They Say, I Say" composition help book.

"They Say, I Say" is based on the premise that new university students need to learn the language of academic English. Rather than simply expect students to learn this language implicitly, the authors suggest that university instructors need to raise students' awareness of these phrases and forms in order to facilitate this type of "language acquisition."

Although this book is intended for native speakers of English, it is even more relevant in our ESL class. If natiev speakers struggle to know how to put academic ideas into academic words,
then it is even more imperative that ESL students be explicitly taught these phrases of academic language.

The book offers templates for phrases and their functions, but the book does not explain how to teach them. So I'm trying to figure this out.

There are a few techniques I have used to teach phrases/vocabulary.

1. Allow students play vocabulary games with partners using the AWL (Academic Word List)
2. Require the use of AWL words in their essays (a portion of their grade is tied to this)
3. Model, show examples, and encourage practice with academic phrases in a lecture format

I wish there was more. I hope to improve my teaching techniques in the near future.

Teacher Verification of iBT

While in line for tickets for the university's production of Little Women the Musical (we're going on my birthday for a pre-Thanksgiving holiday warm-up), I finished another integrated tasks evaluation study:

Cumming, A., Grant, L., Mulcahy-Ernt, P., & Powers, D. (2004). A teacher verfication study of speaking and writing prototype tasks for a new TOEFL. Language Testing, 21, 107-145.

You may notice that this is an article written by Alister Cumming who also wrote the iBT integrated tasks textual analysis article that I also read. I also referred to Cumming's other writing test related work for my MA thesis as well as my rater decision-making study (which I need to finish up and then develop into an article). Cumming seems like a very busy man, but he has been kind enough to respond to a couple of emails that I have sent him about his research and about the UToronto program.

Summary: This article attempts to provide content, context, and concurrent-related validity evidence in regards to the speaking and writing tasks for the new TOEFL (which is now known as iBT). As with the previous studies that I have reviewed, this one focuses on both integrated tasks (combining writing/speaking with listening or reading) and independent ones (in which examinees use their personal experience or opinions to complete the speaking/writing tasks).

Whereas the previous articles focused on the language content (Cumming, 2005) and the scoring procedures (Lee, 2006), this one focuses on how teachers of ESL students feel about the structure of the iBT tasks and their students' performance on these prototype items.

Primary questions are:

• Is the content domain of integrated tasks perceived to correspond to the demands of academic English requirements of university study?
• Is the performance of examinees on these tasks perceived to be consistent with their classroom performance?
• Are the tasks perceived to be adequate evidence for making decisions about examinee language ability?

The researchers found that the teachers felt that these tasks were fairly authentic and represented a variety of language skills required at university (so far as a test is able to recreate authentic situations). There were some concerns that the tasks were not fair for lower ability students who performed poorly on integrated tasks if they did not understand the input material; however, for the most part, teachers felt that student performance on the tasks were indicative of classroom ability. The greatest concerns that raters had with the evidence claims of the tasks were that some students may do poorly if they feel uncomfortable sharing personal opinion (for the independent tasks) or if they struggle with the stimulus content (for the integrated tasks). Cumming et al. conclude with some suggestions for improving the task format and content. They also suggest that students would benefit from exam preparation in order to understand the rhetorical and educational aims of the exam. Lastly, they suggest that more research be done into standardized ratings and on teacher perceptions of students' ability in the classroom versus an exam.

Critique: It's a shame that this article it stuck in the middle between an extensive evaluation (involving a variety of teachers and locations) and an intimate study (focusing on one or two individuals and their unique situation). As a result, we have neither the generalizablity of a large statistical study nor the valuable insight into a specific context. Instead we end up with a bunch of incomplete thoughts and ideas. It's as if Cumming et al. scratch the surface of several interesting ideas, but never uncover a single one. Still, for all its limitations, this study provided me with a good model for some qualitative research (including a survey that I adapted) and it is also likely to help me form some of my content and context validity questions. I also decided, as I read its account of teacher-based evaluation, that a student-based evaluation would be a great compliment to such a study. We'll see if I can make it work, or if I will have bitten off more than I can chew.

Connections: This study served to show me that I need to read a lot more about teacher evaluation study about tests. Was this a good example? How have others approached this avenue of validation? I did enjoy seeing how this person-focused (as opposed to text-focused or score-focused) study complimented other, more quantitative, studies on the iBT in order to give a more complete and well-rounded assessment of the exam.

Additional Reflections:

• I would really like to do an evaluation of the integrated writing tasks at the ELC that incorporates myriad sources of validty evidence including teacher-evaluation, student-evaluation, textual analysis, score-analysis, and possibly more. Am I crazy to want to do this much? Will TREC approve such a study? Will I find a dissertation committee who will approve such a multi-faceted approach?
• Who will I choose as teachers for my teacher evaluation? I think that I would prefer to use all of them (provided that they agree to participate in the study). I don't want to exclude someone because their reasons for not being eager to volunteer may actually be connected to their feelings about the exam and are therefore a real concern that I need to take into account.
  
• Will I have time to do this for speaking as well as writing? My tentative schedule, which I need to present to potential committee members next week, outlines an evaluation of writing for winter 2008 and speaking in summer 2008. I think I can be ready, but the issue is as much about analyzing data as it is about collecting it. Who will I get to help, especially when I am so busy around exam time with administrative duties?
• What kind of concurrent validity claims might I make? Will I ask teachers to rate their students and then compare performance with expectations, or will I use data that we already collect (classroom scores or rated evaluations)? Are teachers very good at predicting student ability? Lee's 2005 thesis of the L/S tests at the ELC say no (as did major portions of this study), but I think that both of those are problematic: Lee because the teacher ratings were probably based on Speaking when she was comparing those to Listening scores, and in Cumming's case, he admits that BICS/CALP may have a lot to do with false impressions. Of course BICS/CALP may be an issue for me too, but if students and teachers practice items in the classroom more than once, then teachers ought to be good at predicting success, shouldn't they?
  
• How will tasks be adjusted for lower levels (adhering the concerns of Sara in this study)? Laura (our Level 1 teacher) has already told me that she thinks Level 1 students need to be able to hear the integrated listening passage twice. As it is, they barely understand it before it's over. A second listening for Levels 1 and 2 might be appropriate and justified (given the findings of this study and Laura's experience).

Research Progress

I just spoke with Sharon (our programmer) about how the integrated writing tasks are going (we are test piloting them with Levels 1, 3, and 5 today). It was good to see that Level 1 (the only level that handwrote) was able to summarize – and even synthesize – the listening and reading passages. We talked about how Level 3 might be especially difficult (given that it is not Level 3 adjusted and it TOEFL level with just a few vocabulary changes to make it easier).

We also discussed writing ratings and the evaluation study. She is very open to programming an interface for online writing rating feedback since she previously developed something similar to it in the past (for speaking rating). I explained that raters would want to see what others had rated a portfolio after they submitted their own rating to the system. She thought I meant all current raters, but I explained that it would be a database of previous ratings (collected from previous semesters and maybe including a recent set of ratings that I solicit from current teacher to be added to the database of benchmark portfolios).

I also think that the database should include more than just scores; information from the evaluation surveys indicates that raters want to see/hear the justifications for a rating. So, perhaps I could get current raters to write justifications (or maybe audio record them and then transcribe them) and add those to the database along with their scores.

Until this week, the evaluation had been progressing slowly. At the end of last semester I distributed surveys to all raters, but my research assistants never picked up the surveys before they both left for out of town jobs at the end of the semester. Frustrated, but not discouraged, I resent the surveys at the beginning of this semester, but half of the raters had left the ELC (due to graduation and full-time job offers) so I was only able to send out seven surveys. At the beginning of this week I had only received two of the seven, so I sent out another reminder and by this morning I had gotten two more. I will follow-up with the remaining raters in order to get the maximum number of responses possible.

The next step for the evaluation? I need to schedule interviews or a focus group with the raters to follow-up on the interviews. TREC had counseled that I not lead the interviews/focus group in an effort to minimize rater inhibition for free expression. I could a grad student to do it for me, but I want to use someone who is familiar with the rating system. I could also use a current teacher, who is one of my raters, but will her personal bias influence how she interprets feedback from others?

The next step for the dissertation study will involve sending a pilot survey to teachers and students based on the practice LAT is being piloting this week and next. The survey piloting will help me to revise the survey for actual use at the end of the semester during LATs. I have received IRB approval, but I am still awaiting final approval on my release form (the ORCA office wants me to update it).

Integrated Writing Task

My plans for a dissertation topic revolve around the use of integrated writing tasks. These exam items, used in ESL assessment, require students to write about a reading and listening passage. We are now piloting the use of integrated writing tasks at our center.

Reasons Why We Want to Implement the Integrated Task

• Every semester we inevitably deal with cases of unintentional plagiarism due to students whose summary, paraphrase, and quoting skills are weak
• Most of our students are planning to attend university in the USA and need to learn English for Academic Purposes (EAP) which involves writing from sources
• Integrated writing tasks are now part of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) which many of our students want to take and "pass"

Differences Between the TOEFL's and Our Integrated Tasks

• Our integrated tasks are used in connection with our Level Achievement Tests in order to assess students' readiness to move on the next class level whereas the TOEFL is used to assess readiness for university study which our program only assesses in an indirect form through level advancement
• Our implementation of the integrated tasks will assess student ability from novice to low advanced, namely our Levels 1 through 5; the TOEFL is designed to assess a narrower band of language ability, namely the ability of students in our Levels 4 and 5
  
• The TOEFL tasks are rated individually, but the integrated tasks will likely become part of our holistic portfolio score, or maybe even a subset portfolio score for fluency (non-draft) writing

In order to properly implement these tasks for our own center, I'm conducting a literature review of relevant studies. The first:

• Cumming, A., Kantor, R., Baba, K., Erdosy, U., Eouanzoui, K, & James, M. (2005). Differences in written discourse in independent and integrated prototype tasks for next generation TOEFL. Assessing Writing, 10, 5-43.
  
• This study analyzed a variety of textual features of prototype integrated tasks versus the current independent writing tasks. It suggests that integrated tasks encourage the use of a greater variety of vocabulary and greater use of source ideas. The independent tasks are better at eliciting more language and at developing better arguments from examinees.
  
• I hope to be able to use this study as a model for the quantitative analysis of my dissertation research. Like the Cumming et al. study, I will examine a variety of discourse features and how they differ between responses to our independent and integrated tasks; I will also plan to look at these language features as they differ across our 5 proficiency levels.
  

I'll add more studies as I read them.

Moving forward

I heard back from IRB today. My request to extend my research has been granted. Of course now that I want to do a different (but related) study for my dissertation, I will need to submit a new IRB application.

Why start something new for my dissertation? I'm applying for assistant professor positions (to start next Fall) and one of them is looking for expertise in an area that I haven't focused on very much: oral assessment and listening/speaking pedagogy. Of course I had taught L/S classes, and I'm in the process of becoming OPI certified, but I haven't done much on this topic from a research perspective. So now's my chance.

Truth is, whatever an employer wants me to be an expert in, I can do it. I have only become focused on writing assessment and methodology because:

1) My thesis chair wanted to research it, so I did it for my thesis, and
2) My current job as the writing coordinator requires me to become an expert on it.

So if a potential position requires expertise in something else, I can do it. My revised dissertation project will:

1) Build on my current research,
2) Relate directly to what I do for my job anyway, and
3) Extend my expertise to include research on L/S assessment.

So we'll see how it goes. The fact is, if I want to be ready for these jobs that start Fall 2008, then I need to be all but done my research by then, which gives me less than a year to plan, conduct, and write my dissertation. Heh. Who knows? I could do it. Probably. Maybe. Yeah. And if nothing else, this job application process will motivate me to graduate ahead of schedule. And there's nothing bad about that idea.

Working on a List

I'm doing my best to check items off of my To-Do list. Today, I sent a draft of my article off for faculty review, I emailed off my OPI materials, and I renewed my IRB application. I've got a variety of projects that I can work on this semester, but they are coming at the expense of other duties. In addition to projects and teaching, I ought to be doing more to train and support our teachers, but that isn't really happening. At this point I'm mostly expecting teachers to figure it out by working together or reaching out to me proactively. Hopefully I will catch up with my projects and book in time to support teachers.

Another Push in the Write Direction

The hints have no longer come subtlety. In fact they could hardly be called hints. Demands might be too strong, but mandates is probably not far.

In the past three weeks I have had two professors encourage me to get back to work on submitting my thesis research to an academic journal. I told them that I was working on a collaborative article, but the truth is my collaborators are not collaborating, so nothing is happening.

Then I figured it was time to start getting my job application skills back on track since I'll only been in my current position until 2009. And of course that means adding publications to my CV.

And then today my boss strongly, strongly, strongly urged me to get my article published. A political, greater good sort of thing. And so that's what I have spent this evening trying to do. Write.

And it's not really working. But somehow I will manage.

Book Review: Academic Writing for Graduate Students

I have several ESL writing related books that I am in the process of reading. I figured that I would use this space to keep track of them and record my impressions of them. So here's the first:

Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills (Second Edition). By John M. Swales and Christine B. Feak. Published by University of Michigan Press (2004).

THE BACKSTORY

I first learned of this book in March while attending the 2007 TESOL convention in Seattle. I attended a forum on writing assistance for international students. Although I don't teach graduate students, many of my current students have already finished an undergraduate degree and have come to the USA to pursue graduate work. It's my job to help them improve their English so that they will be ready for graduate study at an English-speaking university. So for that reason, I figured that I would give the session a try.

As it was, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The panel included writing teachers from several different English-speaking universities who have large international (non-native English speaking) graduate students. They discussed the challenges and success to writing programs and what ESL teachers can do to facilitate more favourable university policy towards ESL learners, and better writing skills among international graduate students.

While they discussed their experiences, I wrote ferociously. I was immediately hit with the desire to take these suggestions back to our program and our students. Only there was a snag: I don't teach the writing course for international graduate students. Nevertheless, I figured the least I could do was pass on the material and suggestions. That night, at dinner, I sat at a table with my boss and discussed my suggestions for the graduate writing course and asked whether I would be able to discuss my ideas with the current instructor. "We no longer have an instructor for that course. She has retired, and we are looking for a new teacher," he explained. He suggested that I contact the professor overseeing that course, who just happens to be my former boss (I was her research assistant) and my thesis chair.

She wholeheartedly agreed to assign me to the course, and although it means extra work for me this fall, it is an opportunity I do not want to pass up since it will be a valuable experience for me. And although I have never used a textbook for any of the ESL writing courses that I have taught, I figured I would try out the text that was recommended in the TESOL forum. I ordered the text for my class, and the publisher sent me a desk copy that I have been reading over the past couple of week.

I frequently tell my students (and even my professors) that I don't like to read, that I got through an undergraduate degree in English literature without much reading, and that I finished a Master's degree in Teaching English with even less reading, and that I have nearly completed my PhD coursework without so much as reading a single textbook (I skim a lot). But despite all that, I actually read this book (well at least most of it - I'm not much for reading boring examples). But I mention this to say that I honestly did read through this text and I feel fairly good about its potential as a tool for me and the graduate students in the writing course I will teach this fall.

THE REVIEW

Part of what attracted me to Academic Writing for Graduate Students (AWG) was its reputation as a strong language guide. There is a current trend among second language (L2) writing texts to focus on rhetoric and writing process just as first language (L1) texts so. I fully support the need for rhetorical and process instruction (if fact, if this university had a PhD in rhetoric, I would be studying that rather than IP&T); however, L2 learners need more than just the rhetoric and process learning; they also need to learn the language of writing.

Imagine my surprise then, when I received my copy of AWG and read, in the introduction, "The general approach [of this book] is analytical and rhetorical" (p. 2). I was shocked, dismayed, and even felt a little betrayed. Here I had been duped into buying a text that was no different than the other L2 writing texts that I had seen in the past. It was going to ignore all the language needs (grammar, vocabulary, socio-linguistic appropriateness, and more) of my students and only focus on the types of writing that they could learn from a regular graduate research writing course.

I nearly stopped reading right there, but I held on and figured that regardless of my confused expectations, it had to have worth if enough people had recommended it to me. As it turns out, I misinterpreted the introduction. AWG is organized around rhetorical functions (i.e., writing general-to-specific, describing tables, summarizing), but each of those sections is chock full of language mini-lessons that describe how L2 writers can appropriately use English language to accomplish those tasks.

It is a dense text and contains a lot of language information, but its organization lends it to practical use. In fact, there are three aspects of its language focus that I really appreciate.

1. Much of its language discussion is supported by corpus research. This means that rather than state that many research papers use one grammatical form, or a particular vocabulary phrase, based on the authors personal anecdotes or impressions, instead this text cites research studies that have studied those very language questions. Corpus research is a hot new thing in applied linguistics, but for good reason. Rather than guess when we make claims about what kinds of words and structures we should teach language learners, corpus linguistics allows us to compile information from numerous real situations in order to help inform our recommendations and choices. It is an approach that L2, as well as L1, writers should greatly appreciate.
2. When the authors of this text discuss language use, they recognize that different disciplines have different standards and trends. They acknowledge the room for diversity, and in many cases, they do their best to cite corpus research in a variety of fields and compare them. Because I will be teaching students from a variety of graduate programs (and I am only familiar with writing from the Humanities and Education fields), I need a source that can help me to guide students from other fields.
   
3. Every time a new structural or vocabulary language topic is raised, the authors encourage writers to consult actual texts from their fields and discover how experts in their major use language to accomplish the particular task (or even if that particular task is relevant to that field of study). As a new graduate student, that is how I learned to write - by reading. Again, I joke about how I never read a book through graduate school, but I read numerous research articles. I paid attention to organization, patterns, vocabulary, structures and language. I still continue to do this, especially since I am now studying in the field of educational psychology and not just applied linguistics. I beleive in this method, and I am happy to see that the authors of this text agree; it will make it much easier for me to convince the students to adopt this approach.

It may seem premature for me to offer an evaluation of AWG. After all, I have yet to use it in the classroom. I do not know how students will receive it, and I do not know how I will feel about using a textbook for a writing course. However, at this point I am mildly optimistic (which is a huge leap for a realistic like me). I will be sure to revisit this topic in four month's time in order to compare my expectations with experience.

Write Back

I started back to work this week. I'm teaching a double-block writing course and also taking over a entry-level Listening/Speaking class. Although the L/S class is mostly about learning English language survival phrases and vocabulary, I am actually enjoying the Level 4 writing course.

I say "actually enjoying" because I had always avoided Level 4 writing. Some Level 4 students can get fairly jaded about learning English (especially if they have already been here for a few semesters) and writing is the class that they dislike the most. However, last semester I had to take on a W4 class in order to help train a new teacher, and it went... not awful. But this semester, the group I am teaching is much more motivated, hard-working, and friendly.

I'm also doing my best to make the class more enjoyable AND more learnable (for example, starting off the semester with a survey and interview writing project). In addition, I'm reading about writing and trying to apply the guidelines and principles to my own class. I have begun reading Academic Writing for Graduate Students by Swales and Feak (for a course that I am teaching this fall), and although the concepts of this text are too complex for the students that I am currently teaching, there are a few methodological ideas that will hopefully help me to make this summer's writing course more valuable for my students.

The ELC Writing Teacher News

When I started my full-time job last fall, I looked for a way to encourage professional development reflection in teachers. I also needed a way to help teachers feel that my observations in their teaching was meaningful. Although I am still looking for opportunities to improve both these goals, I have found some successful in the ELC Writing Teacher News.

What is it? It's a once or twice a semester newsletter that I use to communicate with teachers. In the first issue, I included one paragraph highlighting each writing teacher. I discussed one teaching idea that I learned during my observations of the teachers. I hoped that this would help the teachers in multiple ways:

• Help them to recognize that I paid attention during their observations
• Build their confidence by praising aspects of their teaching
• Encourage them to discuss and collaborate with one another

In addition, I hoped that it would help me exercise my writing skills, especially with a more specific and applied audience than most of my schoolwork writing had been.

I also used the newsletter to highlight particular themes in the teaching of writing, such as helping students to avoid plagiarism. This past week, as I was reviewing my notes from the Writing Matters seminar, I felt it would be valuable to synthesize my learning into the latest edition of the ELC Writing Teacher News. So, even though I am not working full-time this term, I am hoping to stay in contact with the teachers whom I serve, by sharing with them the professional development opportunities I am experiencing while I am "away."

Not only does this have the benefit of communicating with teachers, but I have found that it helped me better understand what it is that I learned last week:

Writing about it helped me learn it.

This key idea is a concept that Gary and Beth tried to communicate in the seminar last week, but I'm not sure I reallyt got it until I did it for myself. It's also an idea that is developing in my IPT 692R course: we learn by writing. It's a basic, and yet remarkable idea. Writing is more than just communication to the audience. It's also reflection and learning on the part of the writer. Makes me glad to be a writer. And a writing teacher.

Survived (and thrived)

It has been a busy week for me with my regular courses and the impromptu attendance at the Writing Matters seminar. When I first got the call Monday morning, I was sure that I was going to have to skip out on a lot of the seminar in order to attend classes, but it worked out: most of my classes are evening courses, and the other two professors excused my limited attendance. As it was, I would break away from the seminar at lunch (taking my catered meal with me) and attend class for a hour before heading back to the seminar. Despite the hectic nature of it, and the fact that Kimberly rarely saw me this week, it was worth it.

I really enjoyed meeting with faculty from across the university: nursing, human performance, education, psychology, biology, chemistry, physics, law, languages, and more. They were enthusiastic, humble, and wanted to learn how to make writing an effective part of their students' university experiences.

I will leave in about half an hour to give my ten minutes presentation - as all seminar participants are required. The presentation is an opportunity to share one way that we will integrate writing into our courses this fall. Although writing is already the central topic of the courses I teach (since I teach writing composition), I learned some important principles to make my current writing assignments more successful.

My presentation will discuss the use of journals as a writing-to-learn tool. I have used writing journals in my classes since I first began teaching here more than two years ago, and I have had varying levels of success with them. While attending the seminar this week, I became aware of the underlying practices that influenced the success of journals: direction, accountability, and cumulative worth.

Direction: sometimes I get lazy or just think "students will know what to write" and I fail to give specific writing prompts for their journals. This inevitably leads to worthless or non-existent journal entries. When I give students a specific prompt, they are excited to write and then enjoy reading and sharing with their classmates.

Accountability: I have this misguided expectation that students will write simply because it's good for them. Oh how naive! We all need motivation, and for students that often means grades and reminders. When I assign journal writing as something to do out of class time and I never check it, students don't do it. But when I provide class time for writing and sharing journal entries, it always results in thoughtful and useful entries.

Cumulative worth: I have always viewed journals as being purposeful in the act, not the result. I feel that journal writing builds confidence and helps students to regularly practice writing on a variety of topics. However, I have never considered using the journal as a resource for a more encapsulating project, such as exam notes. Because I don't offer a content exam in my courses, this would not be an applicable option; however, I do find that when I end a course with a metacognitive activity, students better recognize the worth of the writing course they just took. Therefore, I plan to use writing journals as a resource for students when they write a metacognitive essay at the end of the semester: they keep entries all semester long about their writing process, resources, challenges, and successes. Then, at the end of the semester, they write a short paper that gives advice to a future student who plans to write a research paper in their field. They describes what they feel is the best way to begin research, the evaluate sources, to organize their paper, to improve their English, to revise their work, and to do anything else that is relevant to the task. Not only will this make journal writing more motivating (since keeping details and organized entries will be helpful), but it will also ensure that the self-reflective essay is also more thoughtful.

Here's hoping it works out. And here's hoping that I get better at my own writing journal (aka robblog) so that I can personally testify to its worth.

Tight Fit

As a faculty member, I work on a 10-month contract. This means that, like a school teacher, I get two months off in the summer (or spring) from teaching. Most people would use this time to travel, relax, or just slack off. I, of course, am not doing any of those sensible things. Instead, I seemed to have managed to pack my time off with so many professional development opportunities that it will make my regular work feel like a vacation.

Load 1: Schoolwork
Since I was recently admitted to a PhD program, I decided to load up on the credits this spring term. The rationale was that the more credits I took now, the fewer credits I will need to take later on. In fact, by the end of this summer, it looks like I will have finished all the course work for my PhD. Also, even though I have tuition benefits through the university, I am normally limited to only sic credits a semester; however, because I am off during spring term, the benefits office agreed to pay for as many credit hours as I was willing to take. I called their bluff, and now I am taking double the normal credits that full-time student takes. It requires some time management, and efficient use of skim reading skills.

Load 2: Writing Seminar
Months ago I applied for a university week-long writing workshop. I hoped it would help me in my position as the Center's writing coordinator. My supervisor and dean nominated me for the opportunity, but since I never heard anything official back from the University Writing Office, I figured I never made the cut. Turns out, my official nomination form got lost in the "mail." I got a call from University Writing this morning while I was busy in the office doing homework. "We just had someone pull out at the last minute - are you still interested? And can you be here in 15 minutes?" Sure, it's going to be a little crazy this week balancing all day seminar participation with my full course schedule, but I'll make it work. Good thing two of my classes are evening courses. And the research grant can be a huge source of help for what we are trying to accomplish at the Center. This university keeps giving to me, and I am happy to keep giving back.

Load 3: Assessment Training
I also volunteered to become certified for the Center in oral proficiency assessment. It helps our center to have faculty members who are officially certified to conduct these sorts of assessments. Although the training will come at a difficult time (a week right in the middle of my classes and a family trip), it will work out. We'll change the family trip to a less crowded week and, as for classes, well, that's what the writing seminar week is for - practice for me to figure out how to balance a week of day-long meetings with full-time coursework. It will all work out. Besides, there's only five weeks left to the term. And then I head back to work, and the real vacation will begin.

How do people do this if they have children, busy church callings, or an supportive spouse? All the more reason to graduate before we have children. And all the more reason to stay teaching Primary. And... well, I married Kimberly, so I'm good for life.