Books For My High School English Class

Funded Apr 19, 2016

To Donors,

Due to your generosity I will be able to teach two wonderful texts to my students for many years to come. Both will extend my classroom beyond the boring textbook I have been assigned to teach. O'Brien's book is a challenging look at the war in Vietnam that explains the complexity of the war from a soldier's point of view as well as raise important questions about the limitations and biases of history, and more broadly attacks our notion of a single truth. Kushner's play is a postmodern take on the AIDS crisis of the 80's that attacks homophobic ideas still current in our culture. Despite its controversial nature, I am convinced that it is not only my right to teach this play to my high school students, but my responsibility to teach it. The truth is that not much gay literature is currently taught even now in high schools, and if old ideas are to be challenged and changed, literature has always been a vehicle to create that change.

So it is with gratitude that I write this note with my assurance to you that these books will be read and studied by many students over the next years.”

With gratitude,

Mr. Wilf