Online Tutoring Session (Ninth Grade Grammar)
This video recording of a tutoring session demonstrates how an Internet "virtual classroom" can nullify distance. From my desk in Los Angeles, I tutor a student in San Francisco on grammatical concepts. We take turns writing and diagramming sentences on the same virtual white board while discussing the material.

Literary Analysis Paper (Community College)
This is a sample of a tutoring assignment with a student at a community college. She is not a native English speaker. I worked with her on grammar and expository technique.
I reviewed her paper on Buzzword.com, an Internet service that allows me to make marginal notations on her work.
She was having trouble with Allen Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California.” I started by trying to help her develop what she did understand.

Homework Revision (Seventh Grade)
This student’s dysgraphia was hindering his ability to learn geography. I drew upon the student’s facility with computers, reworking the homework assignment into a format that he could process.
The first worksheets on the page are chaotic and incomplete. Scroll down to the worksheet the student and I worked out together to see the transformation in his presentation and grasp of the material.

Transitions (Seventh Grade)
This student had resisted using transition in his writing. I used the student’s zest for grizzly humor to illustrate the importance of transition.
I may provide a model, but I make sure it’s remote enough from the actual assignment that the student will complete that assignment independently.

Creative Writing (Ninth Grade)
This student has talent as a creative writer, but tends to leave his ideas undeveloped. Through encouragement and gentle suggestions, I directed him toward a more fully realized essay. For this assignment I used Buzzword.com, an Internet service that allows me to make marginal notations.

My Journalism Portfolio
To review my newspaper and radio stories, visit Newstories.info.