First week volunteering

      This week was my groups first time going to EMK to help students with their writing. I was pretty nervous going into it because I had no idea what to expect. The only other tutoring I have done was helping elementary school kids with basic math. Knowing that they were seniors really threw me off. I was worried they would not be receptive of our help since we are the same age. I was also worried because as second semester seniors I expected them to have no motivation to get their work done. I know if freshmen in college came to tutor me this time last year I would of found it strange. I am also not the most confident it my writing skills and was worried they might even be smarter then me lol.
      I was placed in the middle of two girls that seemed to want nothing to do with me. I wasn't exactly sure how to go about giving them help. I introduced myself and asked them their names but then it went silent. I didn't know where/how to start. I eventually started asking one of the girls about her writing because it seemed she already has some sort of outline. She gave me really short answers and I could tell she knew what she was doing and didn't really want/need help. The other girl had no outline and was sitting on her phone. I knew I was in no place to tell her what she should be doing so at first we all just sat in silence. When I finally started asking the girl on her phone some questions about the reading I could tell she didn't really know what to do. She had a general idea of what she wanted to write about but did not know how to go about collecting evidence. I helped her find similarities between the two articles they needed to compare. I tried my best to let her guide her organisation but it was hard because when I would stop asking questions it would just go silent.
        I definitly learned a lot from this experience. I realized the questions I was asking were not worded in the best way. I would say do you know what you are doing and I should of askes what are you doing. This way they actually have to explain it. I also learned that I need to be more engaging and ask more questions. I was very worried about overstepping and being received in a bad way. I realised after talking to the students that they are actually welcome to our help.