About Us - Bridging Stories to Learning

Each story is presented in our online 360-degree story guide. We lead with a narrative overview and bridge to learning presenting related primary sources, engaging media, links to purchase the original story (book or video) and a host of teaching, learning and classroom-management tools. 

Intriguing tales, blockbuster movies, important historical events, engrossing books, cultural myths—these stories engage us and provide keys to learning new information, new ways of thinking and new interests. Mundane subjects are mundane no longer!

Once engaged, we can research these stories, learn more about the time and place of the story, the causes of occurrences in the story ... and their implications.  A dizzying wealth of information is a click away, offering an extraordinary opportunity to engage teachers and learners in constructing knowledge.

Finding stories that present issues leading to mastery of common core and state standards for various subjects and grade levels is a monumental task, especially for over-booked educators. Teachers are further challenged by the need to guide their students to search for, and evaluate, reliable information. This need drove trial attorney Carole Bos to found AwesomeStories and to create a rich, reliable, safe Story-Based, primary source-rich learning environment. 

As a trial attorney, my job is to explain the facts of a case—which often can be incredibly specific and technical—in a way that jurors from all backgrounds can understand and relate-to. Not only must I have my facts totally straight, I also need to tell a story that's compelling in order to keep 12 people engaged for hours, days, weeks or even months during a trial.

I brought the same standards and urgency to creating our website. AwesomeStories presents the "case set up"—the context for the story, plus its entire vast array of evidence. Each story, with its various points of view, is "on trial," and you are the advocates and the jury! (Carole Bos, J.D., AwesomeStories Founder.)  

AwesomeStories bridges stories to learning, as a gathering place of primary-source information. Its purpose—since the site was first launched in 1999—is to provide context to stories, increasing their power and usefulness in learning. We've won awards, over the years, including a 2015 CODIE Finalist in the Social Studies Solution category and, in 2016, we were a CODIE Finalist in both Social Studies and Language Arts Solution categories.

AwesomeStories:

• Turns powerful stories into effective 21^st-century learning;

• Bridges highly produced and high-interest films to learning;

• Provides meticulously researched primary sources; and

• Builds critical thinking and collaboration skills.

Stories are:

• Projected onto whiteboards for whole class use;

• Used in collaborative groups; and

• Used by individual students at school and at home. 

Teachers make lessons come alive and rely on the primary sources to support teaching and students’ independent research—with confidence in accuracy and relevance. 

Through the lens of stories—and the crucible of evidence—teachers and learners of any age can advance their education, meeting Common-Core standards and becoming expert 21st-century learners. Today the stories which intrigue us—from films, legends, current events, history, books, and achievements—come to life at AwesomeStories. 

• Learn to discern resource validity;

• Think critically;

• Explore topics (including non-fiction) in depth; and

• Create their own work.