SPIRIT SERIES—a transformative drama-based core values curriculum—delivers rigorous academic intervention and character education in grades four through eight, with inspiring one-act historical biographies that students study, co-write, stage, and perform. Since we began in 2001, over 50,000 pre-teens and young adolescents have met the SPIRIT SERIES challenge, successfully bringing these one-act "inspirational biographies" to performance as they strive for academic excellence, forge a positive vision for themselves, and begin to become their own heroes.