Roberta Staley offers a wide range of tutoring services for high school English and post-secondary humanities students, as well as emerging professional writers.
Grades 9-12 English
As an English tutor, Roberta works one-on-one with students either online or in her home in Vancouver. Instruction includes reading and analyzing assigned novels as well as essay assignment prep. She will consult with the student’s English school instructor and/or counsellor to establish learning objectives. After each private session, a report is sent to the parents detailing the learning objectives, the activities that were undertaken, the student’s overall understanding and improvement strategies, as well as homework.
University Entrance Essays
Getting into a top university is the dream of many students and their families, requiring hard work, good grades and competitive admission test scores. What can tip the balance in a student’s favour is the quality of the university entrance essay. From initial concept to final draft, Roberta works one-on-one with students to ensure that their essay showcases their critical thinking skills, individuality, creativity and writing abilities.
First and Second-Year University Paper Writing
As a tutor, Roberta works one-on-one with students to help them prepare and write exemplary essays for first- and second-year Humanities classes, such as English or political science. She also provides editing of first-draft essays.
Pitching to Magazines
So, you aspire to be a magazine writer? Do you want to craft perfect pitches that will sell your story idea to magazine editors? Roberta works one-on-one with emerging writers, helping them source story ideas while creating a framework for that crucial first step: a magazine pitch. She also offers instruction on finding key people to interview, how to research, themes, structure, style and self-editing. This instruction can be applied to other forms of writing, including online newspaper reporting, content creation, websites, blogs and non-fiction books.
Learn to Edit
This is for more advanced writing students who want to become rigorous self-editors or who aspire to be writing instructors or coaches. As an English tutor, Roberta teaches the four levels of editing: substantive, copyediting, proofreading and stylistic. Working one-on-one, students learn to assess and edit material for content, structure, style, grammatical accuracy, readability and marketability.