Mentoring Strengths: compassionate, committed, knowledgeable, enjoys having a friendly and respectful relationship with tutees where they can be provided with constructive feedback.
Favorite Book: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Favorite Word: Devotion
Significant breakthrough: Through analyzing literary work, I have become a better critical thinker who can solve her own problems as well as those of others. During my third year in college, two of my literature professors taught me how to look at any literary work with a critical eye. I was then able to realize the importance of literature in our daily lives, because literature can be considered a representation of the real world.
Farah Taha
Mentoring strengths: Patient, caring, able to see the bigger picture
Favorite books: “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka; Endgame by Samuel Beckett; The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Favorite word: Persistence
Significant breakthrough: In Grade 12, I participated in a creative writing competition where students had to create alternative endings to notable Arabic novels. I wrote an alternative ending to Nasrallah’s Birds of September (1962), and even though my piece wasn’t short-listed or commended, I’m still very proud of the work and effort I put into it.
Gacia Danaoghlian
Mentoring strengths: Patient, knowledgeable and able to make students feel at ease
Favorite book: Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
Favorite words: Love and grace
Significant breakthrough: After working with students with different majors and assignments, I realized that there was a common feature among them. Most students were afraid of their own writing. Writing for them was like riding a one-wheeled bicycle on fire. Some grew frustrated; some cried while others lacked confidence. In these cases, I realized that before I begin coaching and pointing out areas of improvement, the writer’s confidence and love for his/her writing must be re-established.
Reem Wehbe
Mentoring strengths: patient, good listener, able to give constructive feedback
Favorite book: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
Favorite word: perseverance
Significant breakthrough: My thesis was the first in Lebanon, second in the Levant, and third in the Arab World to describe a phonological phenomenon in our spoken dialects.
Maya Bazouni
Mentoring strengths: Approachable, committed, and eager to share my hard-won experience with students/tutees
Favorite book: Not Without my Daughter by Sally Field
Favorite word: Hope
Significant breakthrough: I always thought that my teaching goals and achievements would be measured by my students’ instructional gains. In fact, my 14 years of experience as an educator/tutor make me realize more every day that our students’/tutees’ benefits lie also in the amount of time we spend with them as we carry out the part of being an external parent, counselor, or mentor to inspire them to go further and dream bigger.
Krystal El Khoury
Mentoring strengths: Patient, compassionate, challenges students to find their potential and utilize their strengths
Favorite books: The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien; Love Letters of Great Men and Women ed. Ursula Doyle
Favorite word: Ethereal
Significant breakthrough: Completing the first draft of a 300 page trilogy of original works at age 16. By pushing the boundaries of what I believed I was capable of, I knew I would be able to motivate others to do the same. Within each person is a writer yearning to break free. All I can do is give them the key to unlock that potential simmering just beneath the surface.
Vivian Tawk
Mentoring Strengths: Helpful, approachable, empathetic, and very patient in guiding students to become ‘good’ writers and active readers through one-to-one conferencing
Favorite Book: The Prophet by Gibran Khalil Gibran
Favorite Word: Love!
Significant Breakthrough: The experiment I conducted for my Master’s degree on the impact of teaching reading strategies to college students, has trained me to help my students become metacognitive strategic readers as they read an abundance of any course material. Ever since I learned about Edward Said’s ‘contrapuntal reading’, I read books and watch movies with a more critical eye.
Najla-Maria Mouffarij
Mentoring strengths: Nurturing, conversational, technical, imaginative, and always interested in other people’s writings; differentiated approach and tutoring
Favorite book: (it’s ridiculous to have to pick one) Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Favorite word: Hullabaloo (It’s fun!)
Significant breakthrough: I was an optimist who decided to become a cynic at the innocent age of 19. The moment I was able to understand how non-absolute the world and its people are, that was when I became a realist who is more at peace with everything around me. This is when my writing became more ‘mature’ and open to all visceral and cerebral aspects of this world. Instead of writing in black, I now write in any color my mind and soul fancy. Join me?
