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Top Source for Black History Month: Pearson Education Authors, Editors and Experts Expand Resources, Pre-K & Beyond

Upper Saddle River, NJ - February 6, 2002 - Never before have teachers and students had such an abundance of educational resources for Black History Month - in print, on the Web, and through spoken word, lectures, plays, and festivals. This year, students and teachers are turning to Pearson Education (the world’s largest education publisher) for its extraordinary breadth and depth of materials, experts, authors and historians involved with black American history and culture.

Recent partnerships with the Smithsonian Institution, The Discovery Channel, and Dorling Kindersley enable Pearson Education to round out a broad complement of Black History Month resources, replete with primary-source images of artifacts, core and supplementary materials, and hundreds of anthologies and books. Following are examples of Pearson Education companies’ contributions to understanding the African American experience.

Prentice Hall (www.prenhall.com) publishes a wide range of respected works for college-level and adult readers, spanning the disciplines from English literature to political science, from religion to cognitive psychology. Notable authors and editors include Darlene Clark Hine (Michigan State University, President-elect of the Organization of American Historians), Lucius Barker (Stanford University), Stanley Harrold (South Carolina University) and numerous others. Titles include:

New Bones: Contemporary Black Writers in America, Kevin Quashie, Joyce Lausch, Keith Miller http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/hine/

African Americans and the American Political System, Lucius J. Barker, Mack H. Jones, Katherine Tate http://vig.prenhall.com/catalog/academic/product/1,4096,0137795629,00.html

Heritage: African American Readings for Writers, Joyce Jarrett, Doreatha Mbalia, Margaret Lee http://vig.prenhall.com/catalog/academic/product/1,4096,0130141224,00.html

Jazz: A Listener’s Guide, James McCalla http://vig.prenhall.com/catalog/academic/product/1,4096,0130145459.html

Prentice Hall School (www.phschool.com/curriculum_support/black_history/index.html) has created Web pages with a variety of lesson strategies to help teachers find fresh and meaningful ways to address Black History Month, with topics ranging from African Americans in the Civil War to the Negro Baseball Leagues. To further aid teachers, the site includes assessment materials and links to Internet activities.

Scott Foresman (www.scottforesman.com ), America’s leading preK-6 education publisher contributes biographies, fiction, and non-fiction by and about black authors and role models in its top-selling reading program and new social studies program. Notable authors include Candy Dawson Boyd, children’s book author and literacy advocate, and Geneva Gay, one of multicultural education’s preeminent scholars.

Allyn & Bacon/Longman (www.ablongman.com) contributes a host of important works that illuminate history and culture from a minority perspective. Titles include Speech, Language, Learning, and the African American Child, which increases the understanding of differences affecting teaching, learning, and academic outcomes of African American students, and American Politics and the African American Quest for Universal Freedom, a comprehensive examination of the African American experience in American politics.

Pearson Learning Group (www.pearsonlearning.com), comprising Globe Fearon, Modern Curriculum Press, Dale Seymour Press, and Good Year Books, offers a variety of books and programs for younger students to learn about African American history and culture beginning at the kindergarten levels. Titles include African American Awareness for Children, and Celebrating Diversity with Art.

LearningNetwork, Pearson Education’s award-winning learning portal for students, teachers, and parents, is another rich source of information for Black History Month. Online resources include over 450 pages of thumbnail biographies, A to Z, of prominent black figures from Hank Aaron, baseball legend, to James Van Der Zee, American photographer. Importantly, this compendium of biographies - together with a wide range of thought-provoking activities and lesson strategies - illustrates the contributions of black Americans across all disciplines, from economics, sports, science and religion, to civil rights, literature, and entertainment.

To speak with an author or editor, or to learn how schools are using Pearson Education teaching and learning tools to enrich their curriculum, please call Kit Thompson at 212-782-3486.

About Pearson Education

With offices in 33 countries, Pearson Education is the world's leading education business. Its brands include Addison Wesley, Allyn & Bacon, Benjamin Cummings, Longman, Prentice Hall, Pearson Learning, Scott Foresman, and NCS Pearson. Pearson Education is the global leader in online learning with over 1,800 textbook companion Web sites, NCS Learn, the InformIT portal for technology professionals, and Pearson's Learning Network, the award-winning learning portal for parents, teachers, and children. Pearson is the global education business of Pearson plc (NYSE: PSO), the international media group. For more information, visit http://www.pearsoned.com.