TUTORING
I specialize in working with students who think differently.
After I received a late ADHD diagnosis, I realized that the strategies I had developed to support my success as a student and faculty member at elite institutions matched the cognitive processing and motivation fluctuations associated with ADHD. I have thrived because I created these strategies, but I did so on my own, all the while believing that I had a uniquely idiosyncratic combination of talent, curiosity, and frustratingly uneven productivity patterns. As a result, I strongly believe that every young person should have deep structures of support in discovering how they best learn and work.
I offer developmentally appropriate tutoring in writing, the subject disciplines of literature in English or language arts courses, as well as French and Spanish language learning. The long-term goals of my writing tutoring focuses on developing :
a feeling of ease and confidence while composing;
the capacity to identify readerly expectations for every genre, and create revision practices to transform prose accordingly;
the skill to meta-critically analyze how they work in order to create a tool-kit for project management, and an individualized optimal organizational design of daily space, time, and energy.
I look forward to tutoring young learners of all kinds in their writing and language learning. If you are interested in working with me, I warmly invite you to email me at jmr@sfwritingtutor.com to tell me about your students’s needs and interests, or use this intake form before booking.
Sessions start with reviewing the school day to create and revise an energy map; review assignment and break them own into minute tasks to practice project management. Then, we analyze work written in class to identify revision strategies, or start a writing assignment to experiment with task initiation techniques and creative processes.
Sessions consist of drafting practice, analysis of writing done in class to develop an editorial eye, and revision techniques.
Session activities alternate between conversation to practice sustained engagement in French; then, based on that conversation, the student and I will identify and practice the grammar points that will have the most important impact in raising the student's fluency.
Session activities alternate between conversation to practice sustained engagement in Spanish; then, based on that conversation, the student and I will identify and practice the grammar points that will have the most important impact in raising the student's fluency.
Areas of expertise :
project management and organization skills for students with adhd or neurodiverse traits
environmental design for students with adhd or neurodiverse traits
meta-critical self-assessment and energy mapping to align planning and task completion with appropriate supports
support in transitions from middle school to high school and sophomore spring to junior fall : these are the time periods when increasingly complex assignments are introduced and expectations ramp up
strategies for initiating writing assignments and drafting raw material
reverse engineering models in order to identify readerly expectations and design work structures
writing and revising as a method to refine ideas
rubrics for evaluating writing within the different expectations of various academic and professional genres
toolkit of individualized revision techniques
introductory language teaching to develop vocabulary and practice basic grammatical forms
intermediate language conversation with review of grammatical concepts to support inductive language learning
advanced language development of oral and written proficiency to practice sophisticated, idiomatic language usage