NLP Annual Report FY23 - Report - Page 10
STORIES OF IMPACT
Understanding ancient
history using modern
news literacy skills
Middle school teacher Chris
Bily’s media literacy course is
designed to give students the
skills to become more newsliterate, but it does much more.
It bridges millennia and enhances his
seventh grade ancient history classes.
“It’s the obvious connection between
critical thinking and historical thinking
skills,” said Bily, a social studies
teacher at Whitnall Middle School in
Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.
The media literacy course he
created, offered as part of the
school’s six-week sessions of
“mini-courses,” reaches nearly
180 students, or about 90% of the
seventh grade.
who are dead than something they’re
seeing now on YouTube,” he said.
Similarly, he can pique students’
interest in the First Amendment,
which is essential to becoming more
news-literate, when he makes it
relevant to their daily lives. “That’s a
tough sell unless you make it about
them: ‘Can you say this in school?
Can you wear that in school?’”
Recognizing the value of Bily’s
course, his district’s Teachers
Leading Teachers team has asked
him to put together a professional
learning segment about Checkology
for his colleagues.
An educator with a dozen years of
experience, Bily has been teaching
media literacy education for several
years and has used Checkology
since its launch in 2016. His students
like the interactive nature of the
lessons, such as “Practicing Quality
Journalism,” which lets students play
the role of a reporter in a simulation
of a breaking news scene.
He said the timeliness of lesson
examples in Checkology and The
Sift, taken from real news events,
grabs his students’ interest more
than a textbook might. “It’s the
difference between trying to sell
kids on people from 2,000 years ago
10
Annual Report FY23
Examples of student work.
Chris Bily
It’s the obvious
connection
between critical
thinking and
historical
thinking skills.
Chris Bily
“