Zachry

I am an ELA tutor that has been working since 2010 to help students understand and appreciate literature and develop their writing abilities. I’ve taught Composition at the college level, helping students write essays spanning from research papers to deeply personal essays. Additionally, throughout my years as a writing tutor, I have provided personalized feedback on over 4,500 student essay submissions. I have also helped over forty 8th and 9th graders with their “college research projects”, where they were tasked with looking into the college application process, choosing schools and/or programs to “apply” to and creating a presentation. I have a master’s degree in English literature, and minors in Biology, Psychology, and Spanish.

My tutoring style:

I am passionate about the topics that I tutor, and I aim to adapt my approach to best fit the needs and styles of individual students. I first like to make sure there is strong foundational knowledge and then move on to guided open-ended questions to help brainstorm, plan, and organize review material the student is shaky on, and to be able to better plan to discuss the material the student may be struggling with. For college admissions essays specifically, I like to start by discussing with students what they are interested in, their passions and unique worldviews, to allow for careful planning and organization while also prioritizing their voice as an author. Once a specific theme or topic is chosen, the brainstorming and organization, as well as creation of an outline, make the remainder of the process far easier to navigate.

Success story:

Last summer, I worked with a student who wanted help taking his rough draft and revising and refining it. Initially he told me he just wanted me to check the organization and look for grammar issues. During our meeting, it was clear that he was passionate about the topic he had chosen to write about. He had a lot he wanted to say and included all sorts of details and descriptions. Unfortunately, that put it far over the maximum word count! We ultimately spent multiple sessions revising and tweaking things, even deleting entire paragraphs or moving others around. Although at first he did not want to cut any material out, by the time we were finished, he told me he was much happier with the more streamlined and focused final version.

Another student I helped had a strong academic background but was a bit shy and told me she was struggling because she didn’t have anything interesting to say and wasn’t sure which Common App prompt to choose. We started by conversationally discussing her interests and hobbies, the clubs she enjoyed, and potential career opportunities she had thought about. It turned out that she was passionate about music, but although she enjoyed playing many instruments and singing, she felt those activities weren’t unique or interesting enough to write about to make her stand out. She was also worried about deciding whether to pursue music as a career or to continue it as a hobby. After a little bit of work and some fine tuning, we were able to come up with an essay she was extremely proud of, and she later told me she was re-invigorated, and after discussing it with her parents, decided to continue pursuing music academically.

Hobbies and interests:

I’m a big fan of nature and enjoy camping (especially in the Adirondacks!), hiking, kayaking, and the outdoors in general. I also enjoy reading books, especially fantasy and sci-fi.

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