Students and essays have seldom come to me through the summer. And this summer students have seldom requested tutoring since school is out and AP Lang & Comp and TOEFL exams are completed. So I’ve been grateful for the 2025 garlic harvest and braiding. If you’d like to know more about that endeavor, read 2025 garlic braids. It is such a respite to move from mentally analyzing the written word and guiding students to hone their craft to creating a culinary craft with my hands. See some of the garlic braid gallery below.

Yet, I digress. The braiding is almost over for 2025, and the autumn academic term is underway in most locales. So, I switch my attention to Tutoring students and essays, primarily; though, teaching sentence structure and grammar, guiding one writer to hone their writing style and another to create and refine the elements of a fiction piece or a poem are all skills that I love to teach, or guide a writer to prioritize and integrate, masterfully, into drafting their current masterpiece.

So, I am here again, seeking students—students of the English language and of writing. I put on my calendar: “Blogpost-Tutoring.” But in order to write a blog, I had to have something to communicate to you, my reader. Here it is: I’m seeking private students to tutor—on-line or in person. (Beware, what follows seems more like a contract than a blog post. But I want you to know what you can expect from me if you are here looking for a tutor. So get ready for the details.)

To manage the Private Student-Tutor arrangement,

• we can see video of each other by Zoom.

• I prefer to manipulate documents and lesson plans through Google docs.

• In Private Student folders each student and I can add documents in which I leave in-line comments, and the student makes revisions and refines the documents. I also provide sources of information for the student’s use and Word sprints that we work on together.

• Payments are made through Venmo or PayPal.

This private arrangement, between student/parent and I, saves the student or parent the standard fee that tutoring sites require for use of their platforms and the platform’s fees for managing the billing, collecting and distributing of rates paid. In this Private student arrangement, since those platforms and processes will fall to me, much lower fees are included in my rate. We will use a basic version of Zoom for video and audio. After 40 minutes, we will rejoin the session to finish the hour. This prevents a monthly fee for a paid version of Zoom.

In this Private Student-Tutor contract, trust and honesty are primary tenets. Both I and the student must arrive to sessions on time. If sessions need to be re-scheduled, the other party must be informed more than 12 hours before the start time for the session to avoid the Late Cancellation fee equal to an hour lesson. If I cause the re-schedule within that 12 hour period, I will agree to meet at a time convenient for the student within 14 days.

My responsibilities: I will prepare a lesson to meet the goals that the parent/student sets at the beginning of our sessions. I, typically, spend 2 hours prepping for, and documenting, each session for each student. A summary of the session is provided the student/parent immediately after it ends. In other words, one hour in session takes 3 hours of my time. That is why missed sessions incur a cancellation fee or must be rescheduled within the week—because I have already devoted the time to prepare for the session. During the Late Canceled session time, I review student drafts, already submitted and design up-coming lessons, so the time paid by the cancellation fee is devoted to the student.

Student responsibilities: The student must give their full attention to each session and try their best to reach the goals they have set. If our agreement includes the student doing homework to advance their skill and knowledge, the student/parent will diligently address that homework so that its completion can be used in the next lesson. No Homework: If homework is not part of our agreement, some paid time in session will be devoted to the student applying the skills learned—for example, writing sentences and paragraphs that demonstrate those skills being integrated. Every session will require the student to articulate what they are learning, which approaches work best for them, and to identify the focus for the next session. As the student gains skill with practice, the goals for subsequent sessions are appropriately refined.

Schedule sessions in advance, two weeks or more: Unless the tutoring is for one session only, student/parent will schedule sessions at least 2 weeks in advance so that I can schedule other students around the times this student prefers to tutor. At the end of each session, student/parent must confirm upcoming sessions—for the term or, at a minimum, for the next 2 weeks. Until a session is confirmed, the time is not guaranteed. I will try my best to accommodate the session times each student requests.

Person responsible for payment: This responsible party commits to transmit by Venmo or PayPal as soon as the session ends the agreed upon rate for In Session and requested Asynchronous (without the student present) review of student work. As soon as the session ends, I will draft and submit it as completed with a summary of the key elements of the session—usually within an hour of the end of the session. Payment must be received within 12 hours. In addition, the responsible party agrees to review every session with a star rating and, periodically, a written analysis of how well-received by the student my instruction is, and together we will revise the goals we are working to accomplish with the student for the next session and the series of sessions.

Rates:

• Individual self-improvement—$69 per hour

• HS and college—$70 per hour

• Masters or post college graduate—$79 per hour

• Doctoral or post Masters—$89 per hour

• If session runs overtime at the student’s/parent’s request, the additional minutes will be pro-rated at the hourly rate. (For example, 15 minutes over an hour @ $70 = $17.50 added to the hourly rate for a total of $87.50.)

  Fees:

• Credit card fee is paid in addition to my hourly rate (Venmo currently charges 3% of the total).

• Late payment Fee—Discuss with me more than 12 hours before the session begins if you cannot pay for the session within 12 hours after the session. If payment will be late, a 1% Late Fee is added to the rate.

• After a Second late payment, up-front payments will be required before each subsequent session begins.

So that’s the details. I am eager to fill my calendar with students. I love tutoring with students who are eager to learn.

Fill the contact form if you have questions or want to pursue a Private Student-Tutor agreement for your student.

I enjoy a new challenge. In tutoring, this came in the form of a student who wanted help in broadcast writing. I’ve written for broadcast —both rewriting Associated Press (AP) stories and covering local events and writing those stories for the local radio news cast. The other broadcast writing came as I directed and produced three half hour programs that were aired on the local PBS affiliate in Muncie, IN back in the day when I was studying for my Master’s Degree. So that required directing a camera crew and then editing the actual video tape (in the days before digital editing came into the broadcast field), drafting the script for Voice Over (VO) of the Sound on Tape (SOT) footage and then recording the VO of the edited video program.

Now that the garlic is all braided and almost all sold, my attention turns in earnest to finding new students to tutor. And just in time as the academic year gears up.

It is a great joy to meet with the same student for a session each week. We look at what tasks they are developing for various classes and study strategies to help them complete those tasks successfully. There is nothing better than receiving a text from the student: “Ms. Deborah, I got 97% on my AP practice Multiple Choice (MC) exam!” I am as excited as the student. It is delightful to see their skills and confidence develop week by week, term by term, and course by course.

As the student is more independent of my help because they have integrated skills into their planning and drafting processes, I seek new strategies for the next assignments they will encounter in their courses. I let the student guide me to know what task or skills they need for upcoming assignments. We rely on teacher scoring rubrics, comments and in class instruction to be sure my instruction is in sync with what the student is receiving in class.

2023 was eventful and in many ways stressful, yet it presented hope for growth in my tutoring business through WYZANT.com Learning Studio.

Early in December ‘23, I was grateful when my first WYZANT student accepted my application for a job. We met for 3 sessions and they progressed well. They said they were pleased to work with me and that I’d been helpful to their writing process. Yet they did not leave a rating or a review.

Ratings and reviews—that’s what other students or their parents look at to see if they want to request me to be their tutor. I try really hard to provide each student/writer the coaching and help they need to become better writers and to polish the essay they are drafting or revising at the moment. I need my tutoring students to leave ratings and good reviews. I’ve received mostly 5* reviews. However, I’m grateful for every review. Some point out what they want me to do differently. Some may be irritated with tutors before they get to me, and some may have nothing good to say about me. Their reviews are also valuable to me to help me learn how to better serve their needs.

A couple weeks after that first Wyzant student, a doctoral student selected me to review a critical report 2 days before it was due. I agreed to begin immediately and review their report until my next appointment (which was a Christmas gathering with musician friends). I’d return to finish posting my review to them at a specified time that same evening. They accepted these timeframes.

After working 20 minutes past the time I told them I needed to stop, as soon as we were on our way to the gathering, I continued to review and mark the draft for 30 minutes on the road, each way. On return to the Learning Studio a half hour before I’d promised, I added in-line comments. Then I noticed a message from the doctoral student.

They had messaged to say, “Thank you, but I need someone who understands the doctorate and content perspective.” I responded, a bit offended, that I do understand the Doctorate and content perspective. They’d hired me to proofread and help with clarity of language. So that is what I reviewed in the document. And those were the highlights I’d made on the doc. I left comments where the language was unclear—did not communicate a clear idea. I finished commenting, sent them a link to the reviewed doc and, as I always do, sent a link to the Summary Response form with definitions, examples, and some links to further explain the language commentary I’d left.

I charged them for 20 minutes less than I’d informed them I’d spent Reviewing and commenting on the doc. They paid my full rate (of which WYZANT gives me only 75%). The doctoral student did not post a rating or leave any grateful comment. Not a “Thank you, this helped me finalize my language choices. I appreciate that you fit my paper around and into your evening’s engagements at such late notice. It was kind of you to accommodate my needs and accept my request.” Nada.

I can understand that the simplistic definitions and simple instructions I have pre-scripted for college essays—some students are writing their first college essay after years away from school—obviously seemed too simplistic for the task he had to complete. So, despite my being offended, his comment informed me that I must create a Doctoral and Masters Cheat Sheet of resources and examples in more sophisticated, graduate level language .

I am grateful for the tutoring income. And I am a person, offering a service to people who want to use my knowledge and experience. I’m willing to share and help you benefit from what I’ve learned. I won’t do your work for you, but I’m delighted to teach you how to do what I know how to do. You have to put your ideas about your content and research into your text; you must paint those ideas with your voice AND with English diction, sentence construction, syntax, and language conventions to create your masterpiece to put on display for your audience to read.

My purpose for doing this tutoring job is to let you USE what I’ve learned. I hope to mentor writers (even those at the doctoral level or published authors) and some student writers to become the very best writers they can be. My goal is to develop independent writers who know what they want to say and how to say it most effectively so that the reader clearly follows their train of thought, understands, and is moved by what the writer is saying. I hope to create independent writers who don’t need me anymore.

By the time my third WYZANT student came to me, I’d read the tutor forums and found that I should ASK for ratings and reviews prior to the next session so that I find out the student’s perspective on how this session met their needs. Not only because this helps me plan the next session with that student, but also because ratings and reviews are posted on my public profile for prospective clients to see. I asked my student to watch for WYZ’s email and rating/review form. A day later when I’d not been informed of a rating, I sent them a message, asking for a review. Later they told me Wyzant emailed them the rating form after I sent my email to them. They immediately rated 5* and gave a warm, satisfied review. I’m grateful. Since their review, other students have requested I tutor them through Wyzant.

I hope I can help every writer who sends me a request for tutoring or proofreading. I hope each one will grow in their knowledge of essay writing and in their skills to masterfully craft the English language. I hope I continue to learn what to say and how to say it so my students know their own strengths and are willing to learn new skills. I hope I become a more empathic tutor/mentor/guide and am able to discern just what each writer needs. That is my hope for 2024.

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