PrepNow Tutor - Cara K.
Cara earned her bachelor's in journalism, with a focus on magazine writing, from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. While there, she worked for three years at Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy communications department, writing and editing for the alumni magazine and publicity materials. She completed internships at Money, a popular finance magazine, and Bio-IT World magazine, a trade publication for the bioinformatics industry.
After seeing how many writers--even professionals--still struggled with expressing themselves clearly, Cara decided to go into education. She earned her master's in education, with a focus on middle-school English/language arts, at Lesley University. While there, she tutored Lesley undergraduate and graduate students in grammar and composition, as well as in preparing for the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure. Since then, she has taught fifth through eighth grade at Massachusetts public and private schools. Seventh-graders in Massachusetts spend the year focused on writing the personal essay for a major state assessment. The techniques Cara developed to guide her students in brainstorming and outlining translate well to the college essay, which is the same genre--the personal growth essay.
"High-school students are rarely taught to write personal essays," Cara says, "and then--for what feels like the most important assignment of their lives--that is what they are asked to produce." She starts at the beginning, checking knowledge and understanding, so that her students not only produce their best college essay, but take away skills they will need in college writing. "Writing is a skill and a tool," Cara says, "and one that anyone can improve with the right guidance and support." She helps students understand and articulate their intent in each piece of writing and then find the best way to express themselves through elements such as structure, word choice, clarity, and concise language.
In high school, Cara swam on her school team, was an active Girl Scout, and sang a cappella in a student-led group. In college, she wrote for the Daily Northwestern, did technical and backstage work in Northwestern's thriving theater community, and was part of the color guard in the marching band. She has marched halftime at the Bears' stadium in Chicago as well as for the Alamobowl!
These days, she keeps busy writing freelance and raising two little girls and one sweet baby boy. For fun, there is nothing she loves more than a hammock and a book.
