Journalism students play board game based on popular Nellie Bly serial Around the World in 72 Days

by Taylor P.H.

On Monday, Oct. 2, in Journalism 1, students participated in a board game based on the serial Around the World in 72 Days.

The board game, appropriately named 'Round the World with Nellie Bly, was created by Nellie Bly after traveling around the globe to beat the fictional record of the character Phileas Fogg from the novel Around the World in 80 Days written by Jules Verne. After successfully completing her journey in fewer days than it took the fictional Phileas, Bly wrote a book about her experiences and created the board as a marketing tool to promote her book and the newspaper she worked for. The main reasoning behind the creation of the board game was to capitalize on her recent trip around the world; the class had played the game to get a feel of what readers of the serial at the time felt when Bly first published it.

Round the World with Nellie Bly marked a significant period in Bly’s career. She had created it after her recent trip that saw her journeying around the world in less than eighty days. It also acted as a beneficial part of a chapter in her journalistic career up to that point in time.

Dr. Rasmussen, teacher of the Journalism 1 class, had her students play the board game. The students played the game after finishing the serial the previous day. The game had students rolling a die, indicating the number of spaces the player must move around the world. Certain spaces the students could land on may cause them to move forward or backward, giving them an advantage or putting them at a halt in their journey.

When asked how he felt about the board game, Juan T. stated, "I felt like the game was fun” and that the class had “spent time reading the serial and felt like it paid off.” He also expressed his frustrations with the game, saying that "most of the time playing, we kept going back to the same spots.”

Students in the class had mixed opinions on the game. Some expressed that they found the game difficult, and others thoroughly enjoyed it.

In addition to enriching their reading with the board game, students also completed a map activity. Students had done a map where they'd draw three different routes on a world map. The three routes were routes taken by Phileas Fogg, Nellie Bly, and Ferdinand Magellan. The students were to add those routes, as well as their own route showing where and how they would travel across the world.

Students interested in reading the Bly's book can visit the website here.

Students interested in taking Journalism I next school year, reach out to your guidance counselor.