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Laura tutors in Portland, CT

Laura S.

Private tutor in Portland, CT

Education

Drama (Concentration in Dramatic Writing) Major, B.F.A., New York University. NYU Honors Writing Workshop member and recipient of merit-based scholarship.

Experience

I'm an experienced Humanities, English and ESL teacher who is currently teaching courses on Israel and Palestine and the History of Utopian Movements at Wesleyan University's Green Street Art Center, as well as tutoring students in AP English literature and history, ACT reading and writing prep, and ESL speaking and TOEFL prep through Wyzant Tutoring. Prior to that, I recently returned from Zhuhai, China, where I spent roughly two years teaching college-prep English through the China Social Welfare Education Foundation High School to High Level University (HHU) program at the Zhuhai No. 2 High School. I also spent one month through the same program teaching students at No. 1 Haimen High School, the top-ranked school in all of Jaingsu province. During my time teaching at HHU, which uses 'high-intensity learning' techniques to prepare Chinese students to enter top-tier universities abroad, I taught not only spoken and written English, but also TOEFL prep, SAT reading, vocabulary and sentence completion, essay writing, literature, drama, cinema studies and global history. Additionally, I worked extensively with the students one-on-one on their college admissions essays, and served as an adviser on the overall college application process. Prior to that, I taught reading comprehension, grammar, enriched vocabulary, writing, and speech to students ranging in age from 9-15 at Kent Prep, a Queens-based test prep school. I also taught ESL for seven months in Nicaragua with the non-profit org. Projects for People, which utilized drama,creative writing and visual art, and culminated in the performance of a play the students wrote and memorized in that was entirely in English. In addition, I worked with homeless children in New York City as an Artist Mentor with the Builders of the New World Program at the Actor's Theater Workshop, and taught drama to inner-city youth at the Cypress Hills Community Development Center in Brooklyn. My educational background includes a B.F.A. in Drama (concentration in Dramatic Writing) from NYU-Tisch School of the Arts, where I was accepted into the Honors Writing Workshop. In addition, I have roughly ten years experience as a freelance writer, proofreader and editor, having worked various law firms, publishing companies, and with individual professional writers. I'm also a published writer of fiction and dramatic scripts myself (including a feature screenplay that was a Sundance Screenwriters Lab finalist), which gives me a unique insight into analyzing literary fiction and working with writers to help them develop the skills to tell a compelling and thought-provoking story. As a tutor, I give very thorough feedback on written assignments, and have a unique ability to aid a student in homing in on a thesis that may initially be muddled or buried within the text. I also use inventive techniques to teach reading comprehension and SAT sentence completion, such as using a game that develops the student's ability to 'know' the answer before even looking at the multiple choice options, and teaches them how to pick out 'direction words' that change the entire meaning of a sentence. I specialize in helping to foster critical thinking skills and originality. On numerous occasions, my students have told me that working with me has helped them, "Think in new and different ways." Perhaps most importantly, I care deeply about each and every one of my students. I am exceptionally patient, pay special attention to listening to their needs, and am committed to helping them succeed above and beyond the traditional confines of tutoring. As an educator who is incredibly passionate about the enormous potential of awakened and inspired minds, teaching/tutoring is never just a job for me, and I will throw all of my abilities, knowledge, and energy into ensuring that you or your child has the brightest future available.

Availability

Any day at any time

Can Meet

Up to 15 minutes away for no additional charge

Hobbies

Politics and Social Justice, Middle Eastern Affairs (including Israel and Palestine), U.S. foreign policy, Literature, science fiction/fantasy, drama (acting, writing and directing),arthouse/independent/classic cinema, filmmaking, politics and social justice, visual art, non-commercial music of all eras, singing and songwriting, vegan cooking and animal rights, traveling to rare and undiscovered corners of the globe and experiencing different cultures, photography, learning different languages (currently speak Spanish and a bit of Mandarin), nature, environmentalism and biomimicry (especially in regenerative architecture), alternative medicine, psychology, sociology, anthropology, dream analysis, history and pre-history, philosophy, and mythology.

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