Mt. SAC Early College Academy journalists and yearbook staff were up bright and early on February 28 as 12 students from both classes competed in the ELAJEA regional “Write Off” competition.
The competition was held at Cal Poly Pomona, and ran from 8:30am to 3pm. Students from schools all across SoCal as well as the Inland Empire were brought together to compete in a variety of categories, ranging from timed writing to photography, and even yearbook.
The competition allowed for all of the participating TAC media students to learn and grow. However, in total seven students were also able to place in their respective category.
In the section for Novice News, Jason Li (9) came in ninth place, Julian Puente (11) came in eighth place, and finally Joshua Fermalino (12) came in fifth place.
In the photography category, Raeka Wang (10) came in fourth place.
Jocelyn Lee (11) came in eighth place for feature writing.
Lastly, Iliana Maldonado (10) came in fourth place for News writing with senior Autumn Pagan placing in second, qualifying her to compete at the state competition on March 14th.
This was MECA’s first appearance at this event, and the competition’s demands and competitiveness was a completely new experience to TAC Media staff.
Students competing in the ‘Writing’ categories, which included Novice News, News Writing, Feature Writing, listened to a 25 minute presentation in which they had to take notes based on a topic of the speaker’s choosing. Once the presentation concluded, competitors were given one hour to write an article based on the information they had gathered. The articles were then graded by judges and given their respective placement.
On the other hand, students who participated in photography or yearbook were either critiqued on photo and yearbook page submissions, sent in the week prior.
TAC media students had very mixed feelings about the organization of the event they participated in as Fernalino said, “I thought the event was organized very well…it was pretty interesting.”
On the contrary, Maldonado did not share Fernalino’s sentiments on the event.
“The planning on this was terrible,” Maldonado said. “There could’ve been a lot of things that could’ve been improved, especially in my section of writing.”
Maldonado further explained that “the speaker had to put more information about himself for the people doing other types of articles,” as News Writing, Opinion, Novice News, and Editorial Cartooning shared a presenter, which made it much more difficult for her to summarize the data.
Wang also shared that “[Cal Poly] were very late, like an hour late” to open the doors to the student center where the contest was held.
“We stood outside…for about 45 minutes in the hot sun,” Maldonado agreed.
While the students found some parts of the contest lacking, Courtney Bell, Journalism and Yearbook adviser, was pleased overall.
“I, for one, am very appreciative of our organizer, So Hee Tan, from Walnut High School, and Phoebe Chao from West Covina High School, who created this opportunity for our groups to test their skills and learn,” Bell said.
The organizers were also able to host engaging speakers for the contest participants to write about. Joshua Hathaway, a teacher at Sherman Indian High School and a professor of Native Studies, spoke to the News Writing and Novice News participants.
“I thought he was very interesting and provided a very interesting outlook on school mascots and how [Indigenous People and the State of California] are working to correct the blatant stereotyping of many ‘native’ school mascots,” Maldonado shared.
Ultimately although the logistics were frustrating to some, MECA’s Journalism and Yearbook staff demonstrated their courage by making their first ever debut at the ELAJEA competition. While all who participated feel confident in their ability they hope to improve, setting their sights on taking home the trophy next year.
