Tutoring in SP108

A little over a week ago, I had the privilege of tutoring Prof. Pedak-Kari's SP108 class. Prof. Pedak-Kari contacted me and was interested in covering the topics of sentence fragments and subject-verb agreement, with which she had noticed her students were struggling. I visited the class and presented on the two subjects, then the students broke into partners and worked on completing practices taken from the textbook, English Brushup (4th ed.).

Here's a look at our in-class tutoring experience:

If you are interested in a tutoring session in your class, please click here.

Recipe for an Academic Essay

I.                  Introduction

a.      Hook

b.      Background information

c.       Thesis + main points or blueprint

II.               Body Paragraph

a.      Topic sentence that clearly reflects first main point

b.      Supporting detail

c.       Source material integrated with signal phrase and in-text citation

d.     Your analysis of source material (Explain to the audience how the source material supports your main point. Don’t assume the audience “gets” it or that the source material will speak for itself.)

e.      Concluding sentence that summarizes main point & transitions to next main point

III.            Repeat body paragraphs as many times as necessary. Make sure the number of body paragraphs matches the number of main points from the introduction. If writing a compare/contrast essay, for example, make it clear through the topic sentence if the same main point will be discussed in more than one body paragraph.

IV.            Conclusion

a.      Summarize main points

b.      Restate thesis (DO NOT repeat the thesis word-for-word)

c.       “So-what?” statement for audience (food for thought—why does this essay matter?)

Weekly Workshops 3/26, 3/27, & 3/30

Topics up for discussion this week include Works Cited: MLA & APA, Punctuation, and The Outline.

The Works Cited: MLA & APA workshop will be held on Tuesday, March 26th from 1:00-1:45 PM. Learn about in-text citations and works cited/reference pages for both MLA and APA formats. Students will get a chance to use library resources such as NoodleWorks. 

The Punctuation workshop will be held on Wednesday, March 27th from 5:30-6:15 PM. Learn common punctuation errors and how to fix them! When should you use a comma or a semi-colon? Does the apostrophe come before or after the 's'? Learn all this and how to save lives with punctuation!

The Outline workshop will be held on Saturday, March 30th from 12:30-1:15 PM. Learn about outline structure and what to include in your essay outline. Save time drafting an essay by creating an outline first!

All workshops are held in HS 203.

This Week's Workshops

Topics up for discussion this week include The Outline and Introductions & Conclusions.

The Outline workshop will be held on Tuesday, March 12th from 1:00-1:45 PM. Learn how to avoid the most common pitfalls in essay writing by starting with an outline first. Trust me, more errors occur in an essay written without an outline.

The Introductions & Conclusions workshop will be held on Wednesday, March 13th from 5:30-6:15 PM. Learn what should be included in an introduction, including how to grasp the audience's attention. Find out how introductions and conclusions are similar.

All workshops are held in HS 203.

Prezis for Workshops

Click here to view Prezis I've created on various workshop topics.

Microsoft Word for Beginners