John has over twenty years of experience teaching English and history courses in private schools, including The Harker School, San Francisco Waldorf High School, and BASIS Independent Fremont. The courses he has taught – from US. History to Shakespeare’s Plays, from Asian Masterpieces to African Studies – draw upon his broad background in the humanities. John’s personal mission as an educator is to prepare high school students for the challenges and opportunities they will face in college. Throughout his career, he has returned to the university to observe the changes that are taking place with regard to pedagogy, academic expectations, and habits of mind.
With a master’s degree in English and American Literature, as well as an MFA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from Yale University, John has the knowledge and skills to help students achieve success in all of their writing endeavors, and especially in their English classes. In fact, John is an accomplished writer himself. His critical essays, play translations, and poems have appeared in Asymptote, Theater magazine, Small Craft, Friends Journal, Modern Drama and elsewhere. John now works one-on-one with Bay Area students, tailoring approaches to improvement in literary analysis and composition that meet the specific needs of each individual.
Beginning with a diagnostic assessment of the student’s strengths and weaknesses
as a writer, as well as discussions about short- and long-term academic goals, John develops a plan to produce steady improvement in skills and results. If, as he believes, “writing is thinking,” then the time spent under his tutelage helps students not only to increase their technical proficiency but also to clarify their ideas about the topics they are studying in school. With an immersion in the culture of great writing, students gradually discover authentic ways to express these ideas in clear, vigorous prose. The process continues up until the point that they are able to effectively scrutinize and edit their own work, prepared to embark upon the college experience as confident, independent writers and thinkers.
References available upon request.
