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  • Writer's pictureMosaic 2018

Day 1: June 11, 2018 - Patricia Wei

I woke up this morning beyond excited to start my first day of Mosaic. When we arrived, we shared breakfast together—bagels, cereal, fruit—and read the San Jose Mercury News. We then played a game where everyone shared fun facts about themselves. What I found most interesting was how diverse this group of 17 students is: almost all of us go to different schools all over the Bay Area and have a vast range of interests and experiences. For example, some go to charter schools. Some of us are involved in student media at our schools, while others are involved in sports, music and drama.



We were then assigned to writing bios for a fellow Mosaic attendee. I partnered with Berenice, a 16-year-old student from San Jose High School who enjoys painting, vlogging and running. She enjoys helping others and helps translate English for her Spanish-speaking parents.


Maya, our instructor, then taught us about the 7 elements that makes stories worthy of news: Immediacy, Proximity, Prominence, Novelty, Conflict, but most important, Human Interest and Impact. When learning about Human Interest and Impact, we read articles written by previous high school journalists in the Mosaic program on topics such as the community response to the Orlando shooting and homelessness. I was blown away by the power of the anecdotes and the way the words were crafted to tell the stories.


During lunch, we enjoyed lunch together at the SJSU Student Union and learned more about each other. When we came back, we brainstormed story ideas and wrote our pitches. I had an amazing conversation with one of our editors, Robert Salonga, about our pitches. He taught me to play to my strengths and allow my experiences and the things I care about to shape my story ideas. At the end of the day, I was assigned my first story: a feature on refugee families in San Jose.


My favorite part about today was the community we formed in a matter of hours. We’ve already gotten so close to each other, sharing jokes and music preferences. I can’t wait to be working and learning from such a fun, diverse group of people

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