Award-Winning English Tutors
serving Des Moines, IA

Between college essays, literature analysis, and essay editing, Joshua has spent significant time on the writing side of his education alongside his CS major. He's particularly sharp at helping students organize arguments and develop clear thesis statements, treating an essay's structure the way a programmer treats code: every paragraph should have a purpose and a logical connection to the next.

Between a University of Chicago liberal arts education and fluency in both English and Spanish, Elliot approaches English with an analytical mindset that's especially useful for close reading and essay construction. He teaches students to build arguments from textual evidence — identifying tone, structure, and authorial intent — rather than summarizing plot. His 4.9 rating speaks to how well that approach lands.

Grammar mechanics, essay structure, close reading, rhetorical analysis — Mary covers the full range of English skills because she actually teaches across all of them, from high school and college English to comparative literature and essay editing. She's particularly sharp at connecting grammar concepts to stronger writing, showing students how a well-placed semicolon or a tightened thesis sentence changes the impact of an entire paragraph.

Most people don't expect an engineer to be strong in English, but Jai's 1590 SAT reflects serious reading comprehension and writing ability alongside his quantitative skills. He teaches essay structure and close reading with the same logical precision he applies to code — identifying a thesis, mapping an argument's evidence, and spotting where reasoning breaks down. Students preparing for AP English, college essays, or standardized-test passages get a tutor who treats writing as a craft with learnable mechanics.

Perry's Medical Humanities minor at Rice required close reading of literature, philosophy, and narrative nonfiction — the kind of analytical work that builds strong skills in thesis development, textual interpretation, and evidence-based argumentation. He approaches English as a discipline where every claim needs support, teaching students to move from gut reactions to structured, persuasive analysis. Rated 5.0 by students.

Between reading classics for pleasure and writing across multiple disciplines at Harvard, Christopher brings genuine enthusiasm to English that students pick up on quickly. He digs into thesis construction, close reading, and evidence integration — the skills that separate a B essay from an A — rather than vague advice about "being more descriptive." Rated 4.8 by his students.

Reading a poem, analyzing an argument, and drafting a clear paragraph all require the same underlying skill: paying close attention to how language creates meaning. Mimi's interdisciplinary training — art history at Dartmouth, education at Harvard — sharpened her ability to teach close reading and analytical writing as connected practices rather than separate assignments. She's particularly effective at showing students how to move from a vague reaction to a text toward a specific, evidence-backed interpretation.

Between her Ancient and Medieval Studies minor and her love of reading and writing, Isabella brings genuine literary curiosity to English tutoring — she's the rare STEM student who also knows how to dissect a thesis statement or trace a motif through a novel. She approaches essays the way she approaches proofs: every claim needs evidence, every paragraph needs a clear purpose. Rated 5.0 by students.

Engineering students rarely get credit for their writing chops, but Aaron's experience with college essays, literature analysis, and essay editing gives him a practical toolkit for English tutoring. He's especially strong at teaching thesis construction and paragraph-level organization — showing students how to move from a vague idea to a focused argument with concrete textual evidence supporting each claim.

Between IB Literature HL, college essay coaching, and his own love of reading and writing, Ben brings a genuine literary sensibility to English tutoring. He's particularly strong at teaching students how to construct a thesis-driven essay — moving from close reading of a passage to a structured argument with embedded textual evidence.

Between a biology degree and a French double major at Yale, Emily spent her undergraduate years toggling between scientific writing and literary analysis — two disciplines that demand precision with language in very different ways. That range shows up in how she teaches English: whether it's unpacking an author's argument structure, tightening paragraph-level coherence, or nailing subject-verb agreement, she adapts her approach to what each student actually needs to improve. Rated 5.0 by students.

A Comparative Literature degree from Columbia means Jacob spent years reading across genres, periods, and traditions, then writing arguments about how those texts work. He tackles everything from close reading and thesis development to the mechanics of crafting a paragraph that actually says something — the kind of integrated English instruction that connects analytical thinking to stronger writing.

Having worked as a Writing Consultant during undergrad and earned a PhD in Spanish and Iberian Studies, Renee has spent years living inside the mechanics of language — grammar, syntax, argumentation — across two languages at once. That bilingual lens sharpens how she teaches English grammar and essay construction, since she can explain why a rule works, not just that it exists. Her SAT tutoring background also means she knows how to prep students for the reading and writing demands of timed assessments.

Between tutoring SAT Reading and Writing (she scored a 1580) and coaching students through college essays, Kate has spent years dissecting how strong written English actually works. She digs into thesis development, evidence integration, and revision strategies — the skills that turn a rough draft into a polished argument.

Between coaching college essays, editing student writing, and building English curricula professionally, Elena lives inside the questions that define this subject: how do you construct an argument, how do you read a text closely, and how do you write something someone actually wants to read? She brings a First Class Honors background from McGill and Edinburgh to bear on everything from paragraph structure to literary analysis. Her secret weapon is humor — she genuinely believes that a well-timed joke about a bad sci-fi movie can unlock a student's thinking faster than another worksheet.