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.