I love to learn and to help others learn, a pleasure I had for nearly forty years as a college instructor in writing and literature at The College of Wooster in Ohio. Although I taught many classes in these subjects, much of my teaching was done in one-on-one conferences on how to write for a variety of purposes: explanations, arguments, analyses, research, poetry and fiction. I worked with writers from those having basic difficulties to sophisticated seniors working on complex research papers or creative collections of stories and poems. My primary approach is first to try to understand you as a learner, to identify not just problems but also how you work best with a particular style, and to devise a way of learning that fits both you and the form of writing to be developed. Although a writer needs to understand the "rules," such as grammar, the goal is to discover how you can learn to use both the rules and your knowledge and creativity for your own purposes. In literature, my tutoring begins with an emphasis on comprehending the text, identifying patterns and themes, and finally coming to an analysis or interpretation that arises from this understanding and makes sense of as many aspects as possible. In tutoring for tests, such as the GRE or SAT, my approach focuses on understanding the kinds of thinking the tests want to identify, the ways in which the questions try to identify them, and the best strategies for answering the kinds of questions asked. Importantly too, I help the you to recognize your past experiences with these questions--perhaps in other forms--as an important way of easing anxiety about the tests. I am a patient, understanding and experienced tutor, mentor and teacher. My basic belief is that people learn best from encouragement and practice that brings insight, and never from ridicule or harshness. I look forward to working with you to improve your skills in the subjects and goals you want to work on.

Poetry, fiction, film, social justice work, golf