72 pages • 2 hours read
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2009
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Introduction
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
- Genre: Nonfiction; memoir
- Originally Published: 2009
- Reading Level/Interest: College/adult
- Structure/Length: 9 chapters plus an introduction; approx. 240 pages; approx. 7 hours, 30 minutes on audio
- Central Concern: The author, a Jesuit priest, recounts his experiences as the minister in a Los Angeles parish where gang violence was destroying the community. After talking to gang members and learning that most of them simply wanted a job, he founded the nonprofit Homeboy Industries to help them put their lives on a new track.
- Potential Sensitivity Issues: Gang violence; poverty; abuse
Gregory Boyle, Author
- Bio: Born in 1954 in Los Angeles, California; was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1984; spent a year doing mission work and learning to speak Spanish in Bolivia; became minister at Dolores Mission Church in Los Angeles in 1986; began a program in 1988 to help young people find jobs that evolved into Homeboy Industries; has received the California Peace Prize and was named Humanitarian of the Year by the James Beard Foundation (2016), among many other awards
- Other Works: Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship (2017); The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness (2021); Forgive Everyone Everything (2022); The Homeboy Way: A Radical Approach to Business and Life (2022)
- Awards: Publishers Weekly Best Book (2010)
CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:
- Everyone Is Worthy of Redemption
- The Transformative Power of Compassion
STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:
- Gain an understanding of the authorial context regarding Boyle and Homeboy Industries that drives his stories of compassion and redemption.
- Discuss paired texts and other brief resources to make connections via the text’s themes: Everyone Is Worthy of Redemption and The Transformative Power of Compassion.
- Research and present on mission-driven organizations that work to find employment for those at the margins, similar to the work done by Homeboy Industries for gang violence.
Unlock all 72 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
+ Mobile App
+ Printable PDF
+ Literary AI Tools
