FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: USE THE NEWS FOUNDATION PARTNERS WITH BREAKFAST SERIALS TO CREATE EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS

Foundation sponsors two new teacher guides for Breakfast Serials’ Newspaper in Education program

(San Francisco, CA, August 3, 2000) Use The News Foundation, in collaboration with Breakfast Serials, has announced plans to develop teacher guides for the “The Secret School” and “The Monkey King.” The guides will accompany the syndicated stories that will be serialized in newspapers nationwide beginning in September 2000.

Breakfast Serials provides informational, educational and community services, and supports research relating to the promotion of literacy as a social activity. Breakfast Serials works with authors and illustrators to create original serialized literature for newspaper publication. Each story is published in installments, commonly once a week for seven to 20 weeks.

“The Secret School” (for grades four through eight), written by Avi and illustrated by Brian Floca, takes place in a rural Colorado school in the 1920s. When the teacher at Elk Valley’s one-room schoolhouse must leave, bringing about an early school closing, the children secretly decide to take over. “The Monkey King” (for all grade levels), written by Ji-li and illustrated by Hui Hui Su-Kennedy, is a partial retelling of one of China’s favorite classics, “Journey to the West” — a novel of the Ming Dynasty by We Ch’eng-en. The Monkey King is the most famous comic creation in Chinese fiction.

Written by Dr. Sherrye Dee Garrett, Executive Editor for Use The News, Inc. and former Educational Services Manager for Lancaster Newspapers, Inc., the teacher guides complement the serialized stories and will contain chapter lessons, student activities, project suggestions, print and Internet resources, and a promotional ad. Each chapter lesson includes vocabulary lessons, literacy levels, comprehension questions and a newspaper activity.

The guides are similar to those created by Dr. Garrett for previous Breakfast Serial offerings including “Orphan Journey Home,” “The Field of the Dogs,” “The Secret of Smith’s Hill,” “The Army of Two” and “The Black Squirrel.”

“The Breakfast Serials teacher guides are being offered through the nonprofit Use The News Foundation because the Foundation supports the work Breakfast Serials is doing to encourage reading and literature,” says to Dr. Garrett.

Each guide will cost $75. The activities will be customized to individual state standards for an additional $50 per newspaper.

“Little is known about why an individual becomes a reader for pleasure,” says Linda Wright of Breakfast Serials. “However, it is known that talking about reading with family and friends increases the number of hours committed to reading. Breakfast Serials dares to suggest that if a community reads together, the reading process can be transformed from an intimate experience to a social activity that increases the reader’s participation in the process, which in turn drives further reading. Newspapers are the perfect vehicle to deliver our dare. We greatly appreciate Use The News Foundation’s ability to provide integrated support materials for our program.”

Use The News, Inc. is one of the nation’s fastest-growing educational services companies. It publishes a variety of distinguished educational resources for middle and secondary school curriculums.

Use The News Foundation seeks to develop educational projects that provide resources addressing human rights issues such as diversity, character education, health and nutrition, safety, disaster preparedness, the environment and the elimination of prejudice. Founded in August 1998, the Foundation is a nonprofit benefit corporation that fosters partnerships with schools, Newspaper in Education programs and their business sponsors. The Foundation provides fiscal sponsorship that aids these programs in the receipt of tax-deductible donations for their educational work.

For questions about the Breakfast Serials’ teacher guides, contact Dr. Sherrye Garrett at: sgarrett@stx.rr.com

For more information on Use The News Foundation, call (415) 503-1375 or email: bettysnie@aol.com