Elisha: Mecklenburg County tutor

Certified Tutor

I have just completed my MA in English Literature at Georgia State University, where I worked as a writing tutor in the Writing Studio and as an instructor for multiple sections of English 1101 and 1102. I have also spent a year working as a high school English Language Arts teacher. My favorite part of these jobs has been working one-on-one with students and writers, helping them improve their ability to convey themselves through writing. I believe in an interactive tutoring style, one in which I do not function as an editor or grammar-checking machine but rather as a collaborator with the tutee. I want to have conversations about writing, meaning, and intention with my tutees so that I can facilitate the flow of their ideas both globally (at the project level) and locally (at the sentence and paragraph level). Using this approach, I have seen writers improve not only the pieces which we worked on, but also improve their relationship to writing as an iterative process of self-expression and personal and professional growth, regardless of their disciplines or goals.

My past work experience has reinforced my ability to carry out my pedagogical philosophy. During my time as a tutor, I helped students and alumni with a wide array of writing, including essays, resumes, grant writing, lab reports, screenplays, memoirs, and other creative writing. I worked closely with two MFA students on their art theses (one on sculpture and the other in mixed media painting) and a PhD candidate with her dissertation on chemistry pedagogy. I am familiar with AP, MLA, and Chicago styles of formatting. I also worked with a variety of special needs students. In 2019, I received the "Tutor of the Year" award from the Writing Studio (voted on by my peers and the Studio directors) As a graduate student, I developed strong research methodologies, making me especially adept at helping writers with research projects of any kind. As an instructor, I became adept at providing feedback to my students' assignments, specifically focusing on rhetoric and argumentation. Beyond post-secondary education, my year as a high school teacher made me familiar with the National Standards of Excellence for high school students and many ELA assignments and their learning outcomes. Based on these experiences, I am qualified to work with a wide age range of students and writers from many disciplines.