Retired University professor, Stanford, UC-Berkeley, McGill

I've taught all ages from 3 to 83; I have special expertise and long experience teaching English, English and European literature, Classics, and all kinds of history, including history of art. I'm also good for basic math and science of the sort required for the SAT, GRE and LSAT.

Born in Portland, Oregon of Seattle parents, I earned my honors degrees - B.A., M.A., Ph.D - from Stanford and Yale. I worked my way through school with scholarships and fellowships plus part-time and summer jobs from age 16. I've lived abroad and traveled the world, making me multilingual, multicultural and compassionate. I've also been a community volunteer, activist and artist, even a designer who owned her own business before selling it to work in the corporate world of New York.

Teaching children made me a much better teacher of teens and adults. I learned how to listen, figure out what's needed, then quickly provide practical help. In some cases a student's difficulties stem from being born abroad, coming from another culture, speaking another language. I'm not a specialist in ESL, but I've already coached 4 14-year-olds in English, French and German as well as sports, art and crafts before joining the English Department at the University of California, Berkeley. There I taught a few foreign students whose native languages were French, German, Italian and Mandarin. At McGill University in Montreal, my students' numbers, range of backgrounds and languages, vastly increased. Out of the thousands I taught, hundreds came from Central America, Europe, Africa and Asia, the first of their immigrant families to enter university. Wherever I taught, I aimed to inspire, motivate and support students to reach their full potentials. So aside from doing star turns in big lecture courses, I taught smaller interdisciplinary courses designed to rapidly increase not just knowledge and skills but students' observational, analytic and creative powers. I achieved this by creating flexible assignments, then advising and monitoring students individually. This often meant one-on-one tutoring. In high school, many students settle for doing less than they can. They don't with me! Because I often transformed individual academic performances, some claimed I got all the best students. I didn't. I just held students to high standards, working with them till they thrived on their own. I'm proudest of those who nearly failed, then graduated with honors, becoming doctors, lawyers, architects, teachers--even artists, actors, and novelists.

We'll talk first about what you want to achieve and anything that might get in the way. I will probably ask to see examples of your writing and tests you have taken, just to confirm your self-assessment. If factors outside school affect you, we'll explore those, too. We'll then work out a plan to get you to your goals as quickly as possible, respecting limits on time and energy. I'll lead you through texts, problems and puzzles, devising exercises to sharpen your focus, your skills, your critical thinking. I may even assign you literary, logical or mathematical detective work - otherwise known as research. It's fun.

Mary's Subjects

Math:	ACT Math, algebra 1, algebra 2, SAT math
Science:	biology, botany, ecology, geology, nutrition, philosophy, zoology
Art:	art history, drawing
English:	English, grammar, literature, proofreading, public speaking, reading, SAT reading, SAT writing, vocabulary, writing
Test Preparation:	ACT Math, GRE, LSAT, PSAT, SAT math, SAT reading, SAT writing
History:	archaeology, classics, European history, world history
Elementary Education:	grammar, reading, vocabulary
Business:	GRE, public speaking
Corporate Training:	grammar, proofreading, public speaking
Homeschool:	algebra 1, algebra 2, biology, English, reading, SAT math, SAT reading, writing

European History

I have decades of experience researching and teaching European history. I took the usual undergraduate courses at Stanford University and was introduced to historical research in my first term, advanced to independent study. I owe my deeper and far broader knowledge to earned my PhD. studies at Yale Graduate School, where I earned my M.A. in History of Art, earned honors on PhD qualifying exams, and won both the Monticello Prize and a Jr. Sterling Fellowship. I later earned a Ph.D. in English... Read More

Writing

At Stanford, UC-Berkeley, and McGill, I've taught thousands of university students how to write. As a Wyzant tutor in Seattle I've been helping students at every level, from high school through university to graduate and professional schools. Because I've lived in several countries and traveled a lot, I'm multicultural as well as multilingual, and have special empathy for those struggling to express themselves in a second language. I'm by no means an ESL specialist, but I've worked with many... Read More

English

As a tenured professor of English, I have taught thousands of university students from all over the world, though mainly native-born Americans and Canadians. I was lucky enough to come from a family of readers with extensive home libraries. But I'm also one of the hundreds of millions of Americans who have benefited from the thousands of public libraries founded by Andrew Carnegie. While trained by unusually fine teachers of English in a Portland, Oregon public high school, I gained immeasurably... Read More

SAT Math

When working with students on the math portion of the SAT, I first ask what they think their problems are, then test them briefly, using my copy of the latest SAT prep book. On the basis of of both processes, I work out a systematic way of addressing the specific needs of the individual before me. Because no two students are exactly alike, I tailor lessons to suit each one. Having loved math in middle grades and high school, I try to convey how much fun it can be to master math instead of being... Read More

LSAT

As a university English professor, I enabled many students over the years to enter law school and become successful attorneys. I have decades of experience teaching to enable students to read accurately and swiftly assess not just surface meanings but nuances and implications. I'm also experienced teaching logic. I particularly enjoy helping students master the logic games and logical reasoning sections of the LSAT so they can answer questions swiftly and accurately.

GRE

In addition to teaching thousands of undergraduates at three major universities, I've also taught hundreds of graduate students. Over the decades spent teaching students at all levels, I coached graduating students to take the GRE. Whether a student needs to reawaken dormant skills or acquire them for the first time, I can help WyzAnt students just as successfully as I've helped others. If your problem is math, I'll work with you to recover dormant skills and acquire those you never had. Math... Read More

Proofreading

Having written books, hundreds of papers and taught thousands of students since my 20s, I'm more than ordinarily proficient not just showing people how to write well but in editing and proofreading their writing on all kinds of subjects, fiction and non-fiction. I'm also multilingual, so I'm particularly experienced correcting errors made by students for whom English is a second or third language. My whole university career was devoted to helping students to develop their innate intelligence,... Read More

SAT Reading

Having taught thousands of English students at three major universities, I am extra aware of what's needed to do well on the verbal sections of the SAT. When I first meet new students, I spend a bit of time learning where they need help, then discuss how we can work together so they get the highest score they can. I have always tailoring my teaching to the needs of the individual. With a long record of freeing minds to achieve to reach their full potential, I am proudest of the role I played in... Read More

SAT Writing

Having taught thousands of English students how to write not just essays but research papers, theses and dissertations, I bring more than ordinary skills and experience motivating students. In fact, I have a history of transforming low-performers into the top students. The writing skills I teach ensure they'll know how to edit their writing the rest of their lives. I work one-on-one, tailoring every lesson to the unique personality, skills and voice of the individual.

Ecology

My expertise in ecology is based on a lifetime of study, practice and action. I grew up near Portland, Oregon. Both sets of grandparents were raised on farms in the Midwest but moved to Washington state in the early 20th century. One grandfather became an MD, the other a highly successful businessman in Tacoma. But they never forgot their backgrounds. Both they and my parents had extensive gardens including many fruit trees, and I started helping by the time I was five. Everything we grew or bought... Read More

Drawing

I started drawing as a child; by high school I was in the Ford Foundation Gifted Child program in art. I majored in art at Stanford University and was accepted to Yale University's School of Art as major in painting. I voluntarily took early retirement from my university to go back to creative work in the visual arts, focusing mainly on pictorial wall hangings, which involved an enormous amount of detailed drawing and pattern-making. I also do monoprints and screen printing. While in graduate... Read More

Public Speaking

I was trained in voice projection at Yale Graduate School, first because that Chair of the Art History Department selected me to represent Yale at the Frick Symposium on the History of Art, which meant that I had to deliver a precisely-timed, clearly enunciated 20-minute lecture in the auditorium of the Frick Art Museum in New York City. But the second, larger reason was my being on the way to becoming a university professor as I earned my Ph.D. He knew i would have to teach lecture courses, big... Read More

Archaeology

I have been a member of the American Institute of Archaeology, I first joined because i had become fascinated with Greek Bronze Age archaeology in the course of my researches into the backgrounds of the Homeric epics. Modern archaeology owed its beginnings to Schliemann's excavations at Hissarlik (Troy). Subsequent digs on mainland Greece and the Greek islands discovered a number of sites mentioned in the epics and the Homeric Hymns, among them Tiryns, Mycenae, Epidauros, Delphi, and Pylos, as... Read More

Art History

I have an M.A. in History of Art from Yale University. I taught two evening courses in art history at New Haven College while working o my M.A. I later taught two courses in the Art Department at Stanford while earning my Ph.D. At McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada I taught interdisciplinary courses combining art history. archaeology, classics and literature for 22 years. I designed and taught these course at the request of the Art History and English Departments, both of whom interviewed... Read More

Classics

Half of my Stanford University Ph.D. dissertation is devoted to classic literature. Titled The Metamorphoses of Odysseus, it explores the history of the heroic pattern-story narratives going back to the Odyssey. After analyzing both the surface and the deeper structures of the Odyssey, I analyzed Virgil's Aeneid, then traced the ways in which both the Homeric and Virgilian epics led to creation of ancient novels. the rest of the dissertation examined the translations, publications and reworking... Read More

Read all subject qualifications »

Education

Undergrad, Stanford University Graduate, Masters, Yale University Graduate School Graduate, PhD, Stanford University

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Mary will travel within 10 miles of Seattle, WA 98112.

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Mary D.