DUMBING DOWN: THE STORY OF A LIFE

"Vicious lyrics: Some gal a freak, some gal a freak a da week. Promiscuous women, the subject of 'Freaks,' is a surprising topic for a 13-year-old, but.... Vicious's mother is unfazed. [His advance money] will go toward private school and what one hopes was not an occupational hazard - medical bills incurred when he was wounded in a crossfire shooting in 1992."

--"Brat Rap," Retha Powers, New York Times Magazine, 2.5.95

"With its emphasis on personal experience and expression, the process school forgets that the ultimate task of college writing is to teach students how to think."

--Heather MacDonald, Writing Down Together

"Nothing is more singular about this generation than its addiction to music. This is the age of music and the states that accompany it. To find a rival to this enthusiasm, one would have to go back at least a century to Germany and the passion for Wagner's operas."

--Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind