Identity Lessons: Contemporary Writing About Learning to Be American

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Insights
Review: IDENTITY LESSONS was a great learning experience for me. Not only did I learn about my own heritage but about many others, what America is all about. This collection of work is honest and thoughtful. I have used it in the classrooms and students have raved about it. It's good to know learning can happen using beautifully creative work.

Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ AND MUCH NEEDED TEACHING TOOL
Review: It is a crying shame that some so-called reviewers disguise their vitriolic, biased opinions as cogent reviews. Have they read the same book? At a time where there needs to be more understanding in a greatly divided world there is a need for anthologies such as "Identity Lessons". I think the Gillans should be highly commended for being some of the few literary editors with the guts and conscience enough to put anthologies together that truly reflect the great poetry and prose being produced by a myriad of artists, activists and thinkers alive in this country today. As an educator in the school system of New York City, I find that my young students have responded tremendously and enthusiastically to the varied voices presented in "Identity Lesson". It is an important text that speaks to what they are living, thinking and feeling NOW, today!!! Don't listen to the "player-hating" neighsayers who must have some sort of personal (or political) axe to grind against the Gillans, who are doing the much needed cultural work that is so lacking in our society today. Please keep up the good work!!! We educators desperately need more books like this to reach our students and excite them with language and ideas from every aspect of our varied humanity. "Identity Lessons" deserves twice the amount of stars alotted here in this review. BRAVO!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Exploring Issues of Identity Though Literature
Review: This anthology is a beautifully organized and orchestrated celebration and inquiry into how our identities are shaped and formed by teachers, parents,childhood experiences, and popular culture. The editors ahve chosen work that is so clear and moving that the book is didfficult to put down and no matter where I open it, I find something that moves me or makes me laugh. It has work in it by writers such as Tobias Wolff, Sharon Olds, GAry Soto, Philip Levine, Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, and many other well-known and not-so-well-known writers, but what these writers have in common is their ability to show us some new aspect of our own humanity. This book would make a wonderful text in a writing class and would inspire people who are looking for material for their own writing. It is just fantastic!