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Andrew Holyfield

Hi everyone! My name is Andrew. I graduated Summa Cum Laude at UC Riverside in 2016, with a B.A. in Creative Writing. While there, I completed the Honors Program, published a thesis, was an editor for both the campus Research Journal and Honors Program literary journal, joined the Writing Program as a Teaching Assistant, and completed three MFA courses, all with a 4.0 GPA.

Tutoring started for me in the campus Writing Program, in which I tutored eighteen students per week. Around that same time, my younger brother, diagnosed with Aspergers,  started college. I tutored him during his four-year journey to receive his Paraprofessional Certificate.

Nerdy as it sounds, I love Grammar and read often (in-between Netflix binges). Until my time at UC Riverside, I abhorred reading and preferred the trusty summaries from Spark Notes. I know English and writing can be both challenging and boring, but perhaps all a struggling student needs a little help and positive reinforcement. If that sounds like you or your kid, I'd love to help.

I’m a published songwriter with 20+ years experience in the music industry.

Language Arts Super Stars

Welcome to a fun game-centered writing class, taking students to the grass roots of our language.


Students will get the opportunity to play games in order to practice class lessons, learn new

words, and gain a firm understanding of the basic roles words play in a sentence. Lessons will be interactive, focused on student engagement.


Weekly, students will be given ten vocabulary words, along with upwards of two-to-five bonus

words. The ten words will share some common sound or silent letter scheme, to assist student

retention; the bonus words will be more challenging and breaking the phonetic pattern of the

vocab list. Over the course of the year, these words will increase in difficulty. 


Students should

grow beyond introductory CVC words to complex and multi-syllabic diphthongs, digraphs,

blends, and morphemes. Weekly lessons will also incorporate the relationships words have with each other, in the forms of synonyms, homonyms, and antonyms etc. Student will also have the chance to work in groups and individually, granting students the opportunity to discover and correct mistakes in their own work, along with their classmates’.


Additionally, students will also begin to learn the fundamental functions of the parts of speech, punctuation, and the other components that make strong sentences. The course will be evenly paced to ensure students complete and understand the work.


This class is intended to grow student confidence in words, spelling, and sentence-level writing. Through games like Mad-libs, Vocab Charades, Editor-in-Chief, Word Association, and Finish the Story, students can have a fun experience while reenforcing the weekly lessons. Students will also be allotted time to complete group work, centered around the particular scheme or letter-pattern of the week. It is an exciting opportunity to allow students to find the pleasure of learning through play. Ultimately, students should leave class with a new confidence in their writing and spelling abilities.


Due to popular demand from student requests, students will also review cursive. While they will never be tested on cursive, it will be a skill they can choose to incorporate in their weekly

homework.


Homework will be assigned weekly, to reinforce lessons and word lists. There will be two

Spelling Tests during each trimester, intended to gauge student understanding of words so that future lessons can be modified. The first test will appear at the mid-point, while the second appears on the final day of class before each session breaks. Tests will consist of 20 words, an even amount taken from each previous list’s words.





FALL

We review common short vowel and long vowel construction. These words are straightforward

and tackle commonly misspelled words students struggle with. Lessons will focus on simple

sounds and word construction. Each week will focus on one of the five major vowels, in either

the short or long position.

WINTER

Second session will expand on various exceptions to rules and confusing overlap between

sounds, whether that be blends (-sh, -ch, -th) or reasons for the same sound in different positions

(why -c and -ck and -qu and -ch can make the same sound). 

This trimester will also review when certain letters alternate sounds, such as the letter -y.

SPRING

Our final trimester will unpack the various silent letters, and how they function in a given word.

Starting with “magic” -e, we will unpack other examples, such as -pn, silent -h, -gh, and -t. This

will be the most challenging trimester, but it will build upon lessons and games established in the prior classes.

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