Identity Lessons: Contemporary Writing about Learning to Be American

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.

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!!!!!

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!

The mother and daughter team of Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan have put together an excellent anthology of poems, essays and stories about growing up and learning about one's self. The anthology was used in a college class I took, but I found myself reading other selections whenever I got a chance. The selections really dig to the marrow, the pain, sorrow and joy, of each writer's existence. I especially liked the writings of Marie Howe, Afaa M. Weaver and Walt McDonald. With each selection I read, I could make connections to situations in my life that were similar, but I hadn't been able to fully verbalize. I would reccomend this book on one hand as an excellent collections of poems, essays and stories, but on another level, as a revealing book on the inner workings of one's self. The book is not as the subtitle says, "Contemporary Writing about Learning to be American", but contempory writings about LEARNING TO BE with all the emotional highs and lows associated with living in such a diverse country as America.