Carole Bos’ Awesome Story
Digging into the Grand Rapids attorney's repository of educational content
Published in 2024 Michigan Super Lawyers magazine
By Trevor Kupfer on August 8, 2024
On a 1999 flight from Washington, D.C., where she had been serving as special attorney to the U.S. attorney general, Carole Bos had an epiphany. “It was one of those rare moments in life when things happen that you can’t really explain,” she recalls. “I wrote it down on the jacket of my airline ticket and, when I got home, I told my husband Jim.”
Ever since, the duo has spent countless hours building AwesomeStories.com, a repository of primary-sourced information for learners of all grade levels. “I write up the stories the same way I try cases: I’m heavily dependent on witness interviews and testimony, but also pictures, videos and animation,” says the Grand Rapids litigator. “We’re teachers, and our classroom is the courtroom. Our students are juries and judges. That’s how I’ve always looked at it.”
The first story Bos wrote, the trial of Joan of Arc, began with the trial transcript. “I found the real reason why she had been put to death—relapsed heretic for wearing men’s clothes—and was astonished,” she says. Bos included how Joan’s mother tried to clear her daughter’s name and some multimedia info “because some people learn better by listening or by seeing or both.”
After completing about a dozen topics this way, Bos approached teachers for their input. “They’re usually told what to use in classrooms, not asked what they’d like. They were so excited,” she recalls. “So we immediately got swamped with input from teachers everywhere. And so it grew and grew.”
There are now well over 5,000 stories on myriad topics (she once interviewed Ed Masry for a story related to Erin Brockovich, for example) to engage readers of all kinds. “Whether they’re students right now, couldn’t finish because of time, money or life circumstances, and they would like to continue learning,” Bos says. “Our goal was very ambitious, and we never made a penny on it. But it’s good to give back. This was our way to do that.”
Over the years Bos has also written books, but her spare time often goes to the site. During the pandemic, she developed a pilot with Polk County school district in Florida that went to the wayside. Now she hopes to hire staff, and work on another pilot program designed around a school’s specific needs. “If anyone asked me the most important thing I’ve done as a trial lawyer, I would say Awesome Stories,” Bos says. “I took everything I’ve learned and created something to help students, including lifelong learners, learn. That, to me, is more important than anything else.”
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