General Tutoring:
“Sarah is not only an excellent tutor, but she is also one of the best English teachers I know. A writer herself, she has helped many students overcome the various obstacles that limit their potential. She has worked wonders with both the strongest and weakest students, helping them navigate specific assignments and introducing tools to help them manage all aspects of the writing process – from brainstorming ideas to the a polished finished product. As well, she is a wonderful organizational tutor, providing structure and strategies for students who need extra support to manage their time, their materials, and their schoolwork.”
~ Gia Batty, Director of Academic Support, Noble and Greenough School
Parent References:
“Sarah worked with my daughter Jill during her sophomore year in Accelerated English at Needham High School, at a time when Jill began to question her ability to succeed in this challenging class. Sarah has a calm demeanor, positive attitude, and a gift of being able to connect with adolescents and instill them with confidence in their own abilities. Sarah loves sharing her passion for her subject with her students and uses many creative techniques to engage and excite them about learning. Jill, now a college junior, says. ‘Sarah is awesome. She helped me realize I really could think critically and write creatively, and she made writing relaxing instead of stressful.’ Any student who is lucky enough to cross Sarah’s path will improve their reading, writing, and analytical skills tremendously and most certainly gain a life long appreciation for language arts.”
~ Wendy, parent
“Sarah’s tutoring skills are so exceptional that describing them sounds hyperbolic. By employing her training, years of experience, and intuition, she quickly divines each student’s unique learning style. Sarah establishes an immediate and warm-hearted rapport with every child. Sarah believes everyone can learn to be an excellent reader, critical thinker and writer. She possesses the expertise to teach the practical and analytical proficiencies needed to navigate demanding courses. Most importantly, Sarah cares about finding the motivational keys that spur kids on when they are frustrated; she nourishes their love for learning while honing and developing their academic ‘toolbox’. Due to a medical issue, my daughter was home schooled for the seventh and eighth grade. Sarah designed an innovative English curriculum that covered the classic canon of middle school literature and less- known, diverse authors. Sarah taught Ali how to write analytically, how to expressive herself creatively, and how to make an effective oral presentation. Ali emerged from Sarah’s tutelage with extraordinary expressive skills that propelled her to great success through high school and college.”
~ Sheila, parent
“Sarah is a terrific and highly experienced educator and English teacher. She knows how important a student’s confidence is to success and every week, our son left his tutoring sessions feeling great about his progress and energized and motivated. Her positive approach led to an improvement of our sixth grade son’s writing skills on many levels, from essay structure to clarity to creativity and originality. We wholeheartedly recommend her as a tutor.”
~ Ian, parent
“Sarah was a huge asset to our son (and our family harmony!) as he grappled with finalizing his college essay. Her calm demeanor and thoughtful questions and insights really put him at ease and enabled him to further develop and refine his essay. He was able to convey his message clearly and concisely in his own voice with assurances that it worked. We were thrilled with his early acceptance to the college of his choice and credit Sarah with being a part of that. We recommend her highly and enthusiastically!”
~ Elizabeth, parent
College Essay Tutoring:
“Sarah was incredibly honest and sincere with her thoughts and constructive criticism, which was exactly what I wanted, but she was also unbelievably supportive of my central ideas and what I was trying to communicate. In this way, she really pushed me to improve my piece – she helped me write a college essay that was much stronger and more powerful than I could have imagined, while assuring that it was very much still my essay, my voice, my writing, and my ideas. I couldn’t have done it without Sarah.”
~ Juliette, Bowdoin College 2018
“Sarah patiently worked with me, explaining which sections of my piece were unclear and superfluous. She made sure I truly understood her constructive criticism without dictating how to alter my essay. This not only enabled me to efficiently improve my draft, but also pushed me to further develop my writing style. While this was challenging, it was completely worth it because Sarah encouraged me express my thoughts in a creative yet personal manner. She ultimately helped me make my college essay one of the pieces I am most proud of to this day. I would not have been able to do it without her enthusiastic attitude, straightforward advice, and patient guidance.”
~ Sarah, Georgetown University 2018
sarahdickensonsnyder 
I had the good fortune to happen upon Sarah Dickenson Synder’s volume of poetry “The Human Contract”. I think the best critique I have comes from other sources. Shelley writes in “A Defence of Poetry”: “A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth.” Thomas Beller says in his recent biography of J.D. Salinger that its writing would be the act of gathering together little scraps to make a mosaic. Ms. Snider’s free verse is a mosaic of the truth in the human experience-the promises that bind generations. The volume in its whole is something like the belt of the Ghost of Christmas Past – fluctuating in its distinctness, but then “of itself again, distinct and clear as ever.” She writes of her childhood, adolescence, marriage and motherhood in state of simultaneity (the acorn is the oak) an immediacy to which we can all relate. Even if the details are not our own, they may as well be.
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Thanks so much for your thought-provoking, generous description of my poetry, Charlie! I feel like you may have understood what I tried to do better than I did 🙂
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