The Educational Video Center (EVC) is an independent nonprofit media organization that has worked to build students' skills in documentary production and media literacy while nurturing their intellectual development and civic engagement. As founding director of EVC, the author has spent more than 20 years working with students and teachers in New York City and has seen how effective the critical literacy method of media education can be. In this article, the author explores the three key practices and principles of critical literacy for teaching and learning along with the challenges they present, and examines how they so powerfully develop students' intellectual, cultural, and social capacities. Specifically, the pedagogy of critical literacy is comprised of the following three key practices and principles: (1) Teaching Multiple Literacies; (2) Teaching Continuous Inquiry; and (3) Teaching Reflection. The power of this model of teaching and learning is evident in the student work at EVC and opens up important possibilities not only at EVC, but also in school and after-school settings on a much larger scale.