How easy access to stories told cross-media can bring ethics and aesthetics into daily classroom life (And why this matters in a social media-drenched world)

What does easy access via new technology in classrooms mean for stories told about the social world “cross-media,” that is, stories that shift from one content platform –say a book—to another content platform –a screen adaptation? How can cross-media story telling promote students’ human potential across three foundational ways of knowing and valuing: academic, ethical, and aesthetic? Put more problematically, why are educators so wary of using movies in their work with students?

Part 1: The Opportunities Cross-Media Provide for Learning from Stories

As the world enteredthe 20^th century, the age of mass media began in earnest. In the world of entertainment, it began as silent film, and by the 1920s, “talkies” would arrive. The newly innovated/ing motion-pictureindustrywas eager to take well-known stories from the canonical library of literature and the humanities, and adaptthem for,or translatethem into,major motion pictures. Reaction to the origins of cross-media was mixed back then. It still is now.