Our plan is grounded in the following two premises: 1) When purposefully synchronized with one another across multiple forms of media («cross-media»), children's and adolescents» exposure to high quality youth - oriented social and ethical story content, i.e. stories of substance specifically about character development,
compassion, and courage (CCC), is a powerful way to promote youth academic achievement and ethical values; 2) Especially if these stories, told and «read» across media, in their various genres (
human interest, biography, history and historical fiction, civic engagement, coming of age, social change, spiritual awakening, moral issues, etc.), are «taught» by «educators» (broadly defined) using an «
evidence - based» pedagogy that A) makes use of peer to peer, and adult facilitated group discussion and debate as a primary form of instruction, and B) takes advantage of access to the texts of the story that are made available cross-media (narratives, scripts, videos, etc.) to foster students» critical thinking and ethical reflection skills.