specializes in Tutor in Latin, English grammar, and vocabulary · female
Details
| fee: |
$45 (for 60 min) |
| travel distance: |
20 miles |
| tutoring methods: |
in-person |
| certified: |
yes |
| member for: |
6 months |
Contact
Personal Statement
Salve, everyone!
My name is Kelsie. I am a Latin tutor located in the Bay Area of twenty-one years, with eleven years of Latin and eight years tutoring and teaching it.
I am a proud alum of UC Berkeley, and graduated just this semester with a double major in Classical Languages and Linguistics. As mentioned, I have eleven years of Latin, plus four years of ancient Greek and basic speaking competency in Italian. I can read and write Latin, and read Greek proficiently. I left Cal with a 4.0 in Classical Languages and gave the student address at my graduation, receiving the Chair's Award for Distinction in Classics--the highest award offered by my department. Back in the stone age when I was in high school, I also received a 5 on my AP Latin: Vergil exam.
The Latin authors I've studied range in genre from epic to lyric to history to drama to rhetoric, and include Horace, Catullus, Terence, Plautus, Ovid, Cicero, Caesar, Livy, Suetonius, Lucretius, and of course a large helping of Vergil. I've done extensive research papers on many, and also studied the grammar and historical development of the language itself.
My teaching and tutoring experience is diverse. In addition to one-on-one tutoring, I have worked as both a teaching assistant and instructor in Latin, preparing curriculum (exams, handouts, worksheets), grading, and lecturing on subjects such as daily life, mythology, literature, and core grammar. Locations include a high school in Orange County, a charter school in Oakland, and a shelter for homeless youth in Oakland; class sizes have ranged from seminar-style four to public school forty, while my students have been anywhere between the ages of 11 and 50. Just this summer, I received an offer for a full-time Latin instructional position at a newly opening charter school in the BASIS system of Arizona. While I was unable to accept for personal reasons, my long-term goal to teach Latin at the secondary level remains unchanged.
As a tutor, and one who plans to return to school for an MA in Classics and Latin teaching credential, I want the best for each of my students. I hand-design every lesson based on the student's needs and interests. That means a session may focus just on mastering basic grammar, or it may integrate discussion of the Roman culture, history, and art with which all Latin texts are inevitably entwined. I am happy to follow the curriculum of an assigned textbook, or can lay out my own syllabus based on experience with Latin for Americans, Wheelock, Ecce Romani!, and original texts.
Perhaps owing to Latin's historical relation to English, and owing also to my training in Linguistics, I am very strong in English grammar, vocabulary, and writing, and can tutor in any of these as well. I have never received lower than an A on essays or research papers, both in college and high school. Without studying or preparation courses, I also received a 5 on my AP Literature exam, and perfect scores of 800 on both the Reading and Writing sections of the SAT I. I have three years' work experience as a copyeditor at UC Berkeley's law school, and am comfortable critiquing or giving notes on papers, essays, poems, novels, and the like for style, continuity, and clarity.
