Personal Description:

Welcome to my profile. I'm Tess.

I have an Honours B.A. in English and German with a heavy emphasis on Cultural Studies and Critical Theory and in particular the study of discourse.

I have an M.A. in Gender Studies and Feminist Research.

I'm also a singer songwriter, am writing a book, and I do improv in my spare time and I love to apply improv and coaching skills to all teaching and tutoring I do.

Life long learning is a passion of mine, as is creativity. I'm excited to help others find enjoyment in it also.

Tutoring Experience:

I've long been the go to person to help friends and acquaintances with essay writing. My friends started coming to me around age 17 for help with essays, and the same year I worked in high schools facilitating circles for suicide intervention and prevention. I continued supporting writing skills informally into and through university and then went to teach English (language) in Japan in 2005.

In my twenties I created a business for myself of freelance editing and copy-writing and I still continue that loosely to this day - mostly for travel brochures and once in a while I'll edit a novel.

During my M.A. I was a teaching assistant to two wonderful professors and loved hearing about how well I illustrated a point for my students.

At the moment I am supporting two friends with their essay writing through graduate school, while being a stay at home single parent. Helping these friends was actually the catalyst for me deciding to tutor again.

I've been coaching and mentoring (with a life skills coaching certificate) for the last 3 years but enjoy the variety of multiple projects in my life.

Tutoring Approach:

I want to help you reach your own goals. Whether it's an emotional charge ("not good enoughness" or "perfectionism") getting in your way or simply the hard skills of grammar and sentence structure, I am there to support you through it and help you learn how you can support your natural learning style for life.

I see myself as in support of you getting YOUR voice out into the world; unless your goal is simply to get this damn essay done and handed in, in which case we'll just get right down to it together, hand in hand (figuratively speaking).