Valerie is available for virtual private tutoring, editing, and writing /literary education services.
Valerie Arvidson has taught creative writing, research writing, and literature in various contexts for over a decade. Whether leading nature writing exercises at summer camps, or teaching the short story at the university level, Valerie has found great rewards sharing in the joys and challenges of writing and reading literature. Valerie sees herself as a perpetual student and a lover of learning. She has served as a volunteer teacher for youth at 826 Seattle (now the Greater Seattle Bureau of Fearless Ideas), and she served as an Americorps Teaching Fellow in Oakland, CA with Citizen Schools. Recently she facilitated a storytelling workshop with Story Cave in Wellington, New Zealand, modelled after the UK’s Ministry of Stories and Sydney’s Story Factory.
Valerie was the winner of the Richard J. Dunn First Year Teaching Award at the University of Washington in 2011 for English 131: Expository Writing, based on nominations from students and the department's evaluation of her teaching portfolio.
She has taught the following university level courses:
At Green River College, Auburn, WA: English 126 (Research Writing in the Humanities); English 101 (Composition); and English 128 (Research Writing in the Sciences).
At the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. English 384: The Craft of Prose; English 284: Introduction to Short Story Writing; and English 131, Expository Writing.