...the Special Education field for 15 years. I specialize in working with students that exhibit anxiety/emotional difficulties related to academics or have learning disabilities. I especially enjoy working with students on building confidence in their reading and writing skills. I provide tutoring to all types of students in the areas of reading, writing, math, social sciences, psychology, and study skills/organization. I believe that all students have the potential to be successful and to feel successful....
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...and computer science/programming courses because these subjects present so many opportunities for problem solving and students to obtain that "aha" moment. That said, I am qualified and willing to help you reach success in all the subjects in which I am approved to tutor. I started tutoring classmates informally while in college and accepted several teaching assistant positions that enabled me to clearly explain course concepts to students with various backgrounds. Instead of lecturing students,...
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...led me to become not only a lifelong teacher, but a lifetime student as well. Since 2005, I have gone on to teach English in Poland and Hungary, and also back in my hometown, Manassas, Virginia. I have taught English and Literature to high school students, ESL to adult professionals, and last year I taught Creative Writing to Honors Freshmen at Virginia Commonwealth University. At VCU's Writing Center I privately tutored students, helping them write...
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...completed in 2014 while working full time. During my degree work, I would often help out other students in my class. Not only did this reinforce my knowledge and understanding, it taught me how to tutor. I have found that the best way to teach people is to relate the material to real-world situations and to break down large, complicated tasks into smaller, easier to manage subtasks. Right now, I tutor students in grade 7-college...
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I'm originally from Boston and I graduated from Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where I majored in Government and Sociology. During my junior year, I studied abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark. After graduating, I moved to Washington, D.C. to pursue an internship in the federal government and I've stayed here ever since.
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...was introduced to Kurt Vonnegut in college, reading has been an obsession. I've spent years trying to force this love into gum snapping high school students, and when I see that spark of awareness that some of us get from reading great books, it makes up for all the swings and misses on students who just want to get the grade and get out the door. Even if you think reading is something to do...
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...the needs of individual students. I am a regular columnist and curriculum reviewer for Mary Pride's Practical Homeschooling magazine, hold a current teacher certification from Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), and earned a BA in Church and Family Ministries with a Cognate in Elementary Education, GBS Aldersgate program. My education credits include Principles & Methods of Education, Child Development, Social Studies Methods, Math Methods, Language Arts Methods, Reading Methods, Children's Literature, Educating Exceptional Learners,...
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...advocate for Carol Dweck's growth mindset theory of education, encouraging students to learn and grow from their mistakes rather than becoming discouraged and giving up. When I was in high school, I struggled a lot with math, and this caused me to view myself as a failure. Working with my own tutors and teachers helped me realize that I am capable of overcoming difficulties through perseverance, and that's a skill that I want to pass...
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...Honors courses and extra-curricular research activities since the beginning of my undergraduate education. Additionally, I have volunteered at the Student Success Center in multiple educational institutions. I was a struggling student at certain points along the way in my academic career, and I valued the people who helped me get through both issues with comprehension and motivation, and fostered the skills within me to get to where I am today! It is my goal to...
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...Chemistry. Beginning Fall of 2016 I will be attending UNT Pharmacy School in Fort Worth. I have tutored for many years in a variety of subjects ranging from the sciences to public speaking, writing, and english. In high school I coached speech and debate for middle school and high school students. I can assist with test prep as well as projects. I like to make learning fun and enjoyable and so I try to use...
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...high school as an English language tutor for immigrant students. After graduation, I worked in the service industry and also made time for a trip to New Zealand and Australia, while earning a certification in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and Teaching Pronunciation from Oxford Seminars and Eastfield College, respectively. I used these qualifications to journey to the city of Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia, Russia, where for two years I taught English language...
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...my students continued to grow; I realized firsthand how every individual deserves a quality education. Subsequent to my time in Boston, I moved to the Bronx where I immediately sought to connect with the community through volunteering as a tutor at Mexican American Students Alliance and teaching a NYS English Regents class full time at a charter high school. Throughout my career as a high school teacher, I also tutored students in various English-related subjects,...
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...spent two years teaching German in grades 1 5 at the Munich International School. I'm familiar with the philosophies and demands of the IB program, from the students' as well as the teachers' perspective. In addition, I've taught English as a Second Language at an academic summer camp for teenagers in Germany. Currently, I organize and lead a creative writing group for adults with my husband at our home in Brooklyn. Over the course of...
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...different environments, with a diverse range of students, encouraged me to explore more creative tutoring methods in order to understand and communicate ideas. Through my experience as a tutor, I developed a multifaceted approach to teaching and learning; a style that is adaptable and uniquely catered to each individual personality. I have found that humor and games are particularly effective in motivating students to achieve in subjects they may otherwise find dull or abstract. While...
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...helped them write and research on complex philosophical and policy topics. This experience, in addition to my writing-intensive major, has prepared me to tutor writing. I tutor 6th grade through 9th grade writing in addition to AP Government and History. I am passionate about these subjects because I love thinking about arguments. My tutoring philosophy is to focus on individual problems or assignments and work through examples with students; I do not lecture unless necessary....
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...Rindge and Latin High School in Cambridge, MA. Most of my classroom experience focused on under-performing students, and my greatest joy as a teacher was in finding ways for reading and writing to feel relevant to students who had previously written off literacy as a non-essential. Along with my work in education, I have worked for the past five years on a variety of projects to create a sustainable and humane food system. In my...
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...has been with Middle School students in a classroom setting, along with after school tutoring and intervention classes. I feel very comfortable working with different age levels because I am extremely well prepared and able to differentiate learning styles. In addition, I truly enjoy watching students learn and achieve to their potential. I am an excellent tutor because I listen to the student's specific needs and establish a plan that helps the student fill in...
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...while other times it takes a considerable amount of work. It is my belief that when a student sees that you care about their success they will go that extra mile and accomplish things they never though possible. I enjoy helping students achieve there goals. In the state of Virginia I am certified in middle grades English and math along with my certification as a K-12 special education teacher. I hold a bachelors degree in...
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...of confidence in tutoring English related topics such as reading and writing, and I am fluent in Spanish after living abroad for over a year, so I would greatly enjoy tutoring anybody with the desire to improve in that subject as well. However, my ultimate goal is to become a high school history teacher, so I would be very interested in tutoring the subjects of American or European history. It is my belief that education...
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...AP tests. I also tutor Japanese, clarinet, and public speaking. My favorite subjects to tutor are any involving ESL or foreign language as I have a passion for language learning and teaching. I speak English, Spanish, and Portuguese, and have also studied Japanese, German, Brazilian Sign Language, and Italian. I would describe my teaching philosophy as friendly but structured. I use lesson plan organization techniques including lesson plan outlines and back-up activities in case a...
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Our interview process, stringent qualifications, and background screening ensure that only the best 8th Grade Writing tutors work with Varsity Tutors. To assure a successful experience, you're paired with one of these qualified tutors by an expert director - and we stand behind that match with our money-back guarantee.
Receive personally tailored 8th Grade Writing lessons from exceptional tutors in a one-on-one setting. We help you connect with the best tutor for your particular needs while offering flexible scheduling to fit your busy life.
8th Grade Writing Tutoring FAQ
By eighth grade, most students have become fairly confident with their academic progress and school standing. In the last year of middle school, however, this paradigm can quickly change, as teachers focus on preparing students for the rigors of high school. While the transitions from pre-algebra to algebra and life science to biology may not be particularly imposing, the expected advancement in students' reading comprehension and compositional skills can be overwhelming. In eighth grade, students are introduced to close reading exercises that are designed to help them gain nuanced meaning from literature, and they are expected to be able to compose passages about the literary analysis they have gleaned from a presented work. If your child is struggling to master the intricacies of high-level literary interpretation, or is having difficulty translating his or her observations into original compositions and essays, eighth grade writing tutoring may be the key to mastering these skills before high school.
Essay composition in sixth and seventh grade is rooted in persuasive writing, which encompasses the five-paragraph essay model. In eighth grade writing, however, students are forced to adopt a new approach. The intertwining of literary comprehension and composition requires a level of insight and awareness that can be very difficult to obtain in a classroom setting. It often requires students to make unintuitive leaps between the words on the page and the authors intended meanings, and to convey such logic in the form of a thesis statement and analytical essay.
If your child is an eighth grade student who is struggling with writing, Varsity Tutors can help you connect with a writing tutor who focuses on building the mentality that your student will need to become a well-versed English student in high school, helping him or her to develop the skills required to analyze complex poetry and prose, and to convey their thought processes and interpretations on paper.
Writing proficiency is an important component of success in high school, college, and in many professional fields. In order to make sure that your child gains the skills needed to succeed in these environments, they will need to be able to write well thought out essays and letters. While some students benefit from studying in the classroom, many need an extra push to be sure that they get the guidance needed to overcome any obstacles they face. Fortunately, Varsity Tutors is excited to help these students find a private writing tutor that can implement a customized lesson plan best suited to their needs.
When you contact your local branch of Varsity Tutors, you will be helped in connecting with tutors who are best suited to your child's immediate needs. Your tutor will carefully consider your child's learning habits, compositional tendencies, and areas of strength and weakness, in order to help you to complement your child's learning goals. Each session promotes one-on-one learning, allowing your child to receive immediate and targeted feedback to help develop his or her literary voice. The individual attention available with a private tutor can easily help your student develop the tools for success in future composition-based courses.
By helping your child to think like a writer, you can help him or her find success well beyond his or her eighth-grade year. Compositional skills are core requirements for almost any career, and they are certainly an essential aspect of the college application process. Writing tutoring can help your child develop the fundamental skill set that can help carry him or her forward into numerous academic and professional pursuits.
For more information about connecting with a tutor in your area, contact Varsity Tutors today and ask for assistance finding the right tutor for you. It doesn't matter if you want to study in person face-to-face over the internet, there is an experienced instructor who is eager to help make your child's dreams a reality.
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Recent 8th Grade Writing Tutoring Session Notes
First, we discussed the effectiveness of the organization skills he has started to put into practice. After that discussion, I brought a vocabulary worksheet for him to match the definitions. I circled the words he struggled with and provided a sentence example that seemed to really help. For the remainder of the session, we worked on writing prompts. I had him pick two prompts that interested him and we tried two different outline systems. Next week, I will have him write a paper from each outline to see which one allowed his thought process to brainstorm most efficiently.
The student and I reviewed the grammatical terms his teacher said would be present on the final. After reviewing each term, he created his own example of a sentence in which the grammatical structure being discussed was present or I presented him with a sentence for him to diagram.
We read and discussed the top 100 most common SAT vocabulary words. She was familiar with many of them, yet she does not use them in her writing. We reviewed a previous essay. She made corrections to it. She also completed a sentence correction portion of the practice test and she was 20% correct. We discussed her answers. I gave her a practice writing prompt and as she drew and told me how she would outline her paper, I wrote it down for her. She is a great artist so drawing as she thinks is what she does best. I will continue to do activities while she can have her hands free to draw and think objectively.
We prepared on outline for the previously written paper using notes from that assignment. I explained to him how an outline is set up and together we completed the assignment. He understood the task.
Student 1 wrote two essays based on essay topics that I sent him for the novel he recently completed, The Outsiders. I read both essays, provided written and oral feedback, and discussed areas that need improvement such as elaboration, support, and clarity. He will re-write both essays based on my feedback and I will check them during our next session. Student 2 wrote two essays based on the recently read novel. The Time Machine. I also provided him written and oral feedback and outlined what areas need improvement such as support, organization, and word choice. He will re-write them based on my notes and I will review them during our next session. Both boys will begin reading their second novel on their summer reading list.
In this session with the student, we went over all of the writing assignments that she was able to complete while on her trip. She read Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," and Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat." She wrote two short comparative essays for the Poe stories, and two analysis essays for "The Lottery." Her fundamentals, grammar and spelling are strong and she knows how to structure essays for them to be logical. Where she needs work is in the areas of phrasing and flow- her sentences are repetitive and choppy, with repetitive words and simple structure. We went through her essays and practiced combining her sentences into longer ones using commas, semicolons and conjunction words, and went through circling repeated words and coming up with different ways to say the same thing without using those phrases.
