I teach individually crafted units of study for students eager to deepen their understanding of literature and the power of the written word. My approach is to produce content that is challenging and important, that increases vocabulary, encourages critical thinking and builds confidence in writing and public speaking.
With online tutoring, students have an hour each week to delve into exciting content, ask questions, and write!
Via Skype, we share documents, critique writing, collaborate with group assignments, read classmates’ work and share ideas.
Benefits
- Create a variegated literary foundation
- Increase your vocabulary skills
- Learn with professional instruction
- Maintain flexibility with your busy schedule
- Engage in writing competitions
- See your work published online
- Gain assistance with test preparation and college essays
Test Preparation
Although Kaplan and Princeton Review are excellent primers for standardized tests, certain tests such as the Connecticut Mastery Test and the New York State Regents exams, as well as AP English Composition, AP English Literature and even AP History Exams, require focused test prep.
College Admission essays
The college admission essay is a unique personal statement that requires clarity, honesty, and ingenuity. In many universities it is one of the most important factors determining entrance into an institution. I offer guidance in composing this essay through writing prompts and discussion, drafts and re-writes.
Prep school entrance essays
Similar to the College admissions essay, private high school admissions essays can be challenging yet enjoyable to draft, refine, and present.
Offline, time is spent reviewing student work, editing and making comments and analyzing students’ current grammar skills. Parents are encouraged to communicate as much as they like, and correspondence is frequent.
Operational mode
What is it that causes a student to excel? Part of any student’s success can be attributed to time management. Some modes of instruction elicit genuine interest in the subject and this in turn promotes the ability to move from subject to subject with full attention. The learner’s attitude, approach, and satisfaction are all key factors in long-term academic success.
Practical
My lessons last one hour, are held in the afternoon or early evening, and at the end of the lesson I assign the next week’s work.
New students need to submit work and be prepared to revise drafts prior to the first lesson.
Tuition for the semester (or ten weeks) is paid in advance. Tuition covers one hour of instruction per week.
24 hours notice for cancellation is requested. In addition, 3 weeks notice is requested if you are thinking about not continuing to enroll your child. This naturally allows me to find other students to plan to take the time slot, and also allows me time to wrap up my own planning. Once tuition is paid there can be no refunds for these reasons. However, I will reserve that time for your child or their sibling for as long as you want!
Two hours of homework is expected from each student per week.
Proof of concept (2010)
Students who have excelled in this model have attended Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, Princeton’s SIG, and other exciting summer programs. It is evident from their high academic marks and their abilities to constantly challenge themselves that their key to success is in producing high quality content for a sustained amount of time. The first three seniors I taught (class of 2012, West Point, Yale and Princeton) all began study with me in their sophomore years in high school, and during that time, read such authors as Eudora Welty, Stephen Crane, John Steinbeck, Claude McKay, Maxim Gorky and others. This formed the core of Mr. Watt’s Literary Services’ curriculum. Not only is the reading above grade-level, the close reading is rarely experienced in secondary school. See Student Work tab, or look at Homeroom tab which highlights excellent homework. This experience enables the young to forge their character in the stirring company of great authors, for as Socrates says, “Improve yourself by other men’s writings, thus attaining effortlessly what they acquired through great difficulty.”
Above and beyond university and prep school admissions, I enjoy the opportunity to teach bright, ambitious students in literary theory, argument and rhetoric, poetry and prosody, the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. I oppose Critical Race Theory and Open Society programming of all types.
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Philip Watt studied at Bard College’s Master of Arts in Teaching program in that program’s second year (2005), and went on to teach in NYC Public Schools for two years; his background in the arts includes stage and film acting, and he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dramatic Performance from University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. When teaching in the NYC public schools, Philip (Mr. Watt) excelled at producing Regents Essay (NY State Exams) scoring results while teaching four discrete units to four sections of sophomores: Regent’s Prep, To Kill a Mockingbird, a two-year review of units, as he’d taught the same students for two years, and Buchi Emecheta’s The Bride Price. The practice of developing curriculum for individuals or smaller groups, while surpassing academic standards, arose from that experience. He brings to online instruction his perspectives in dramatic art and literature, helping produce the best written performances from his students, which are published. Current and former students: Rye High School, Boston Latin, The Brearley School, Hotchkiss, Horace Mann Academy, Hackley School, Pingry Prep, Greenwich Academy, St. Luke’s School, Harrow International School (Hong Kong), and The Latin School (Chicago), as well as these outstanding public high schools: Wellesley, Scarsdale, Rye, Greenwich, and Stuyvesant, in NYC.
Mr. Watt’s students have been admitted into (partial list):
Dartmouth College (’26)
Yale University (’15)
University of Pennsylvania (two admissions, ’19 and ’20)
Carnegie-Mellon (two students, engineering and finance) (’14 and ’19)
University of Chicago (’16)
Haverford College (’21)
United States Military Academy at West Point (’16)
Princeton University (’17)
Columbia University (’15, ’19)
Bard College (’21)
AFFILIATIONS
Screen Actors Guild/AFTRA
Actors’ Equity Association
United Federation of Teachers, NYC
Certified, New York State, English and Drama, grades 7-12
Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers
International Online Tutors Association
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Other website: www.philipwattcasting.com