I received my Ph.D in English from Binghamton University, worked on an MA and DEA at the University of Chicago and Paris VIII, and completed my BA in English and Art History at Rutgers College. I have been a teacher and a tutor for over 20 years working with high school and graduate school students. My passion for reading and writing started very early, and because I am interested in all forms of literature and had a strong French language background, I moved towards Comparative Literature and became a "generalist." I get a great deal of pleasure from empowering students to discover new perspectives and understand new things.
I believe that everyone can learn and that we all learn in different ways, at different speeds, and with different goals and results. This makes creativity when teaching and tutoring all the more important. I believe that learning to express yourself effectively and increasing your ability to understand and interact with the world around you meaningfully is more important than the skills and strategies used to increase scores on standardized tests, but the skills needed for these tests are not inimical to genuine learning. Not always trying to see things in conventional ways and with conventional results can help you to better appreciate set standards and norms in a new way, both for their flaws and qualities.
Learning can be a fun, even pleasant, and certainly an empowering process, but it isn't always so. Learning can also include painful frustration, and you need to be ready and accept that as part of the process.
I tutor essay and creative writing, literary reading skills and writing about literature, and test prep for SAT and AP English. My favorite form of tutoring is helping students to understand and appreciate different forms of literature as well as helping them to work their way towards understanding difficult concepts and connecting those concepts to their own life. My tutoring style varies depending on the students. For beginning students I tend to be a little more directive and with more advanced students I ask many more questions. In any case, the student's ownership of the learning process is my goal.