Award-Winning Writing Tutors serving Portsmouth

When I arrived, the student had just finished and turned in her PowerPoint presentation. We went over it, and because she has to present it, I asked her to give a mock presentation to me. After a few runs, and a bit of feedback, I felt she had a good presentation and she seemed confident. We spent the latter half of the lesson working on metaphors, especially consideration of extended metaphor.

I looked over the notes that the student's teachers gave on his report card. His grades are very good, and according to his aunt, the only reason he didn't receive a higher grade in writing was that his teacher "couldn't read his handwriting." We did some reading comprehension exercises on making inferences from text, and then we did some writing exercises to work on his penmanship. He has a habit of writing certain letters from the bottom up, which tend to be difficult to read. In particular, the letters "c", "g", and "p" are all written from the bottom up, and when he's writing quickly, they are very difficult to make out. I'd like to spend more time improving his penmanship and his concentration while writing.

The student and I continued to worked on the transitions in writing. She and I edited the previous practice and worked with the tools of grammar. Her writing is showing progress, and her confidence is building. She was left with a prompt to practice transitions with as well as a news article to help reinforce writing styles.

We discussed the student's writing assignment for this week. He also showed me his outline for his final paper, which I told him was a good start but needed more information and structure. I told him that the outline should allow him to see how he will structure the paper in a logical framework so his arguments and train of thought are clear. We may meet later this week but will definitely meet next week.

I first explained the writing assignment for next week, which was to first identify from a current event cause and effect explanations. The student was to try and locate about 5 statements from the newspaper that reflect this concept. Then, next week, I will give her a writing assignment related to cause and effect. Secondly, I reviewed with her the 20 new vocabulary words she is to prepare for next session, and lastly, we read and revised her essay on the disadvantages of lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18.

The student and I finished up the conclusion of his paper. We focused on developing a strong topic and conclusion sentence that mirrors but does not match the introduction. We also looked through the comments his teacher had on his paper and made a few changes. I am happy to keep working with him on an as needed basis. I told him to feel free to have his mom reach out to me to set up further sessions, or he can text me as well.