Remigius: Lake Forest tutor

Certified Tutor

As an instructor of writing and as a writer myself, I believe that it is important to teach writing as a constant work in progress. I maintain that no single written assignment can exist in a vacuum; all work is contingent on others. To view all written work as never-ending is a benefit because it means that the writer can always make improvements on it and use its strengths to aid his or her other written work. Holding that mindset makes it easier to see the value of revision and makes the actual practice of revision more accessible, which, if practiced, makes it more natural.

Teaching writing gives me the unique privilege of helping students learn how to articulate their viewpoints and make connections that they might not otherwise have practice doing. With my students, I take an active learning approach and push them to ask themselves not only what they think about something, but why they think it. This dialogue with students frequently happens in small-group and large-group discussions because I believe that if a student can articulate his or her opinion verbally, then he or she already has the basis for part of the expected written work. In class, my students engage each other in textual analysis of their own papers, their classmates' papers during peer review, and, finally, samples of written work from a wide variety of genres from outside of the classroom.

I encourage my students to connect my class readings, discussions, and assignments with material that they are learning in other classes because I believe that it will be useful to them in the long run as life-long learners. Writing is a skill that is necessary in all academic disciplines and I wish to give my students every intellectual advantage possible.