Christie Willhite Email & Phone Number

Greater Chicago Area

I oversee the editing process for Expedition: Learn! social studies and science lessons for upper elementary and middle school students, guiding lessons from first edit through preparation for online posting. I ensure lessons are engaging, clearly written, and appropriate for the audience. In this role, I coordinate with subject matter experts, content and copyeditors, fact checkers, and a media team to deliver interactive lessons that spark students' interest and support teachers' classroom instruction.

As a lead copy editor, I provided oversight and guidance for a team of copy editors and served as liaison to content writers on projects creating custom English Language Arts curriculums for K-12 school systems. I delivered accurate copy that adheres to style guidelines while editing to ensure both teacher-facing and student-facing resources were clear, consistent, and compliant with the client's goals and requests.

I wrote entertaining, accurate, and informative feature articles and news features for newspapers, magazines, and websites, often providing sidebars, photos, and graphics in addition to submitting publication-ready articles. I'm able to generate my own story ideas and develop sources, but am equally comfortable writing on an assigned topic or working with provided sources.

As the Assistant City Editor for the Daily Herald's DuPage County editions, I oversaw planning and editing of the daily local news section, managed the editorial content of special publications and led the coverage of charities and nonprofit organizations.

During my years as a reporter, I covered local governments, breaking news and crime. For five years, I covered education -- policy and politics as well as classroom activities and student and teacher achievements -- in two of Illinois' largest and fastest-growing school systems.

I reported and wrote general assignment freelance stories, filled in on municipal coverage, and wrote features and event previews.