Hey there! I'm Kel.
I am a professional Latin tutor, writing coach, and SAT instructor for a prep company in the Bay Area, with twelve years of Latin, nine years' teaching experience, three years' background in academic copyediting, and five years' freelance editing for students and artists.
--Academic Background--
I graduated from UC Berkeley with a double major in Classical Languages and Linguistics and a 4.0 in the former, giving the student address at my department's graduation ceremony and receiving the only Chair's Award for Distinction in Classics--the highest award offered by my department. For students at the high school level, I received a 5 on my AP Latin and AP English Literature Exams among many others, perfect scores of 800 on the SAT writing and reading sections, a weighted GPA of 4.86, and was a National Merit Scholar finalist.
--Specializations--
Foreign languages:
In addition to the previously mentioned twelve years of Latin, I have five years of ancient Greek, as well as basic speaking competency in Italian and some reading ability in Spanish.
Classical Latin, Roman and Greek history, Roman and Greek art history, historical linguistics of Latin:
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 a great deal of Vergil. Beyond having a deep knowledge of Latin itself, my background is interdisciplinary and includes work and research in the related fields of historical linguistics, history, and art history in both ancient Greece and Rome.
Writing, proofing, editing, and copy editing:
I have written many and edited all of the following for grammar, misspellings, content, clarity, and style: academic research papers, essays, and articles; creative short stories, novels, poems, monologues, and fan fiction; critical reviews of academic works, video games, and books; and college entrance personal statements. At Cal, I built a background as a copy editor for the Boalt School of Law and worked on formatting, indexing, and more according to the Chicago Manual of Style.
--Work Experience--
Latin:
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 65. Straight out of graduation, I received an offer for a full-time Latin instructional position at a charter school in the prestigious BASIS system in Arizona. I have worked with a variety of beginning to intermediate textbooks, including Wheelock, Cambridge, Linney, Ecce Romani!, Latin for Americans, Latin Via Ovid, and Oxford.
Writing and editing:
I have three years' copy editing experience at U.C. Berkeley's Boalt School of Law, served as a writing coach to A.P. Literature students preparing personal statements for college, and have been working as a freelance editor for high school to college aged students and young artists since 2007. To reiterate: I have to date written many and edited all of the following: academic research papers, essays, and articles; creative short stories, novels, poems, monologues, and fan fiction; critical reviews of academic works, video games, and books; and college entrance personal statements. As a student at Cal, my research papers, field studies, and essays never received anything but As; currently, my articles and fictional works are well-received online.
SAT prep:
I am an SAT instructor with a prep company, and teach weekend "bootcamps" for the company--eight hours of class time over two consecutive days. In that time, I and 40+ students cover every section of the SAT via 200 pages of carefully planned curriculum, focusing on the teaching of shortcuts and elimination of formulaic "trap answers" that are never, ever correct.
--Teaching Style and Goals--
Latin:
According to student goals, I will work from the curriculum of an assigned textbook or follow the pedagogy I have developed over the years, which subscribes to the belief that Latin is more easily learned by patterns than piecemeal as most published textbooks approach the language. Regardless, each face session includes a custom lesson plan tailored to the student's needs, and is supported by regular email, Skype, and phone assistance. While rote memorization plays a part in the acquisition of any language, my focus is always on building an understanding of grammatical patterns, which assists the student in parsing Latin text regardless of his or her grasp of the author's vocabulary or unique style.
Writing and Editing:
When proofing students' works, I give copious feedback towards the refinement of clarity, conciseness, and style, focusing on precision in syntax, diction, vocabulary, theme, and authorial intent. Communication and feedback on both sides is paramount; as an editor for creatives and academics, the goal is to perfect the student's style, not impose my own.
--Personal Goals--
I have been accepted to the MAT program at UMass: Amherst, which will grant me a Master of Teaching jointly with a secondary teaching credential in Latin. In a few years I hope to be teaching Latin at a public, private, or charter school in the United States.
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