Benjamin H.
Private tutor in Chesapeake, VA
Education
Bachelor of English, Creative Writing Minor - Virginia Commonwealth University (2013) 3.7 In-major GPA (my average amongst all English/Writing classes); 3.3 overall GPA
Experience
English is what I do and what I know -- I'm familiar with several editorial styles (MLA, AP, etc.) and with most protocol junior, high school, and college-level writers and readers will be expected to know and understand. In particular, I'm adept at helping students better understand big ideas in the literature they're reading through close readings of smaller details in the writing. We then take these ideas and structure an essay with a clear and focused premise, working toward a final product that is both exceptional and stylistically above-the-cut. I'm also available to edit papers of nearly any persuasion or subject. I give quick but very thorough editing advice that covers all the subjects you'd expect -- clarity, style, content, formatting/grammar, etc. For high school students, I took and received the highest score on the AP English exam, and I'm exceedingly familiar with the types of questions you'll be asked and the expected content/quality of the essays you'll be writing for that exam. Naturally, this also keeps me available and skilled enough to help students prepare for SOL exams and other benchmarking tests. For college students, I'm incredibly familiar with the types of peer revision and editing you'll need to craft excellent, A-scoring papers and essays. I'm also available for more abstract writing guidance -- think fiction, poetry, non-fiction writing, etc. Though I didn't choose them as subjects of guidance, I'm also very familiar with computers and computer technology, written German, and with music and music theory (as well as composition and musical engineering). Please don't hesitate to contact me if anything I've mentioned above seems like something you or your child needs help with, both in any major or minor capacity.
Subject Expertise
College EssaysVocabularyReadingPoetry WritingFiction WritingWritingIntroduction to PoetryIntroduction to FictionEnglishEssay EditingComputer Skills10th Grade ReadingAP English Literature and CompositionAP English Language and Composition9th Grade Writing9th Grade Reading12th Grade Writing12th Grade Reading11th Grade Writing11th Grade Reading10th Grade Writing
Availability
Weekdays after 1PM
Can Meet
Up to 20 minutes away for no additional charge
Hobbies
My primary interests, as you might expect, include reading, writing, and music. I spend a lot of time both listening to and composing/creating music, while also writing and doing freelance editing work. My taste in both reading/writing and music is very wide-ranging. For music in particular, I have a heavy interest in modern classical work, experimental/avant-garde work, and music borne of the 90s post-hardcore scenes in Seattle, D.C., etc. If you're curious or interested in talking music, don't hesitate to email me! For writing, I'm stylistically most interested in particular types of niche genre writing, including crime writing/noir, dark fantasy, dystopian fiction/sci-fi, magic realism, or really any genre that pays particular attention to humanizing the inhuman and making small ideas seem huge on the page. Authors I most enjoy, for example, are people like Kafka, Philip K. Dick, Cormac McCarthy, Faulkner and most of the American Southern Gothic writers, etc. I enjoy writing that can take a particular space/time and make it ooze all over the page. I also really like fine-tuning -- this explains my fascination with editing essays and music, as well as my general interest in building computers, organization, etc. This is perhaps less of a hobby and more of an obsession, but nevertheless, it's a definitive trait of mine!
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