Post #6 EMK - Victoria Nemeth

This past week I had my second session at the EMK writer’s room.  During our first session, we were placed in a classroom of juniors.  I was really nervous going into this session for a few reasons. First, I didn’t think I would be able to be much help because I haven’t ever really tutored in writing before.  I also was nervous about working with kids who are so close in age to me. In the past when I worked with kids, it’s either teaching swimming lessons to three year olds or being a camp counselor for eight-year-olds.  This was new territory for me, and in the past two weeks I think I’ve made some improvements.  

For my first session, I was paired with two girls who didn’t really want to do any of their work.  For that class, their assignment was to work on their thesis statements and introductory paragraphs on paper to transfer them to google classroom on the computer.  They already had a start on their paragraphs and were working on peer revision. Pretty much the only thing they wanted to do was go on tik tok. I would work with them for five to ten minutes at a time until they wanted a tik tok break.  It was definitely a difficult task, but after the class ended I was excited to have the first class done and be able to learn and improve for the upcoming weeks. 

The second class, we were placed with seniors, who I was nervous to work with because when I was a senior I was kind of just done with high school.  The whole atmosphere in this classroom was so different. For this class, the students were writing a comparative essay between two different poems or short stories of their choosing.  The kids were all at different places in their writing process, but the class was much less wild and noisy. I was working with a girl who was very focused on the assignment, and needed less help with making sure she was on track.  She needed a little help with the structure at first, but once she started she was able to keep working throughout the class period. She would periodically ask me to check over her work after she finished working on a paragraph, and I would give my advice on how to help with the essay.  When we introduced ourselves to the class, we told them that we were health science majors. The girl I was working with was very interested in hearing about our experiences because she wanted to go into a similar field. It was really nice to be able to see the kind of impact we have the potential to make on the students at the EMK, being able to give them guidance and help beyond English.  Talking to her about the types of classes I’m taking as a health science major and her interest in science really made me feel like I connected with her and maybe made an impact on her being able to believe in herself to go to PA school.