
Katie: Roanoke tutor
Certified Tutor
Knowledge means very little to me if kept all to myself. For years I huddled in library corners, devouring novels and filling notebooks with poems that would never have readers, and plays that would never have actors. That is until I moved to Berkeley, CA as an undergraduate at the University of California. There I found community, and there I too found fulfillment in taking my love for literature out of the shadows. In my fourth year I worked with non-native English speakers through the Student Learning Center on campus as a writing coach and tutor, helping freshman students not only boil down the basics of "the college paper," but, I hope, come to appreciate the value of writing skills in life off campus as well.
After college, I embarked on a road trip to everywhere in general and nowhere in particular. Since then, I've worked on organic farms, mucked out horse stalls, jumped off of cliffs, built an adobe hut, and led field trip groups at Native American museum, to name a just few, all while falling deeply in love with the desert Southwest. I've made my home outside of Tucson, AZ, where I'm happy to spend much of my time outdoors, hiking, riding my horse, and, as some things never change, reading many, many books. As a tutor, I hope to infect others with my enthusiasm for learning and, as they are one and the same to me, life.
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Undergraduate Degree: University of California-Berkeley - Bachelors, Comparative Literature
State Certified Teacher
- SAT Composite (1600 scale): 1530
- SAT Verbal: 800
- SAT Writing: 760
Creative writing, reading (especially outdoors), hiking, horseback riding, learning something new every day
- Advanced Placement Prep
- AP French Language and Culture
- College Essays
- Comparative Literature
- Conversational French
- English Grammar and Syntax
- ESL/ELL
- Essay Editing
- French
- French 1
- French 2
- French 3
- French 4
- Homework Support
- Languages
- Literature
- Other
- PSAT Critical Reading
- PSAT Writing Skills
- SAT Writing and Language
- Study Skills
- Study Skills and Organization
- Summer
- Test Prep
- Writing
What is your teaching philosophy?
I believe that success begins with confidence, and that confidence begins with intellectual conviction. My goal as a teacher is to inspire students on a personally motivated, lifelong learning journey by which they will be empowered to reach towards the upper echelons of success and achievement.
What might you do in a typical first session with a student?
I like to get to know the student and establish a rapport that hovers in a comfortable space between peer and teacher.
How can you help a student become an independent learner?
Central to the practice of independent learning is independent motivation. My goal is to inspire students with the desire to enrich their lives with the infinitely renewable wellsprings of knowledge available to us.