The Freedom Writers Freedom Writers was released in 2007 on January 7. It was based on the book the Freedom Writer's Diary by Erin Gruwell, who wrote the story based on a school name Woodrow Wilson Classical High School in Eastside Long Beach, California. This film tells a story about Erin Gruwell, who is a young teacher who just started her job as a freshman and sophomore English teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School. She is soon challenged by a group of Black, Latino and Asian gang members who had excessive hate for the new teacher, Erin Gruwell. The most significant themes in The Freedom Writers is tolerance, journal writing/empowerment, determination and last but not least is freedom. Erin Gruwell, the teacher starts on her first day at Woodrow Wilson High School. She is unprepared for the nature of her classroom because the students live by their generations history of strict rules and rivalries amongst other “groups.” Most of the students in her classroom are in gangs and almost everybody knows somebody that has been killed by gang violence. Once she steps in the class, Gruwell quickly learned that her students had more to worry about than homework; her students went home to gunfire, gangs, drugs, and a host of other difficult situations. Gruwell did not know what she was getting into. The students was convinced that they didn’t have nothing in common, or that they could learn from a white teacher because she never experience what they previously and currently was going through at the time such as violence and discrimination which was part of their everyday lives. Later Erin tries her best to connect with her students by talking their language and by referring to cultural artifacts they are familiar with but as she does it, they still manage to judge her because the students felt like she was just another white person trying to get over them. During the movie, one of the themes the students had to learn to cope with was tolerance. Tolerance is a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, beliefs, practices differ from another. In this case the students in Ms. Gruwell’s class had no respect or knowledge of the different tragedies and stories their classmates had experienced. Gruwell’s students hated one another for no reason other than they thought they were supposed to because of gang memories. Gruwell tolerated the disrespect and mischievous treatment by the students, and she did it for one reason, which was to make her students better people and to show them how life can be better and how certain situations could be handled differently. The teacher taught them that they had more in common than they thought. Everyone in class had lost a friend or loved one dealing with violence. Some had been abused and molested in the days, but most of them were actually victims of substance abuse. They were all connected in one way or another. With that Ms. Gruwell got the students talking more to each other and not only tolerating, but also accepting one another for who they are and where they came from.
Freedom is the right to do, act, say, or think whatever one desires. The problem with the students in this movie is that they did not feel free. They did not feel free to express themselves verbally or emotionally. In the movie latina student Eva Benitez expresses the lack of freedom she feels just walking through her neighborhood. She says “ I saw a white come break into my house and take my father for no reason except because they felt like it, except because they can, and they can because they're white.” Eva expresses the lack of freedom she feels in her own home. The students in this movie all feel confined to their race. Every race has a different stereotype and in this movie the children feel as if they are nothing more than just a stereotype. She started to connect with her class once she confiscated an ugly racist cartoon that one student had drawn of an African American in the class. She started to compare the drawing to Jews.’ (members who were a part of a cultural community whose traditional religion is Judaism and who trace their origins through the ancient Hebrew people of Israel to Abraham.) Ms. Erin was so shocked because her students didn’t know nothing about the Holocaust and how they suffered by the Jews.
Ms. Gruwell decided that she wanted to find a way for the students to open up and comfortably express themselves. She gets each student a personal journal they they will write in everyday. The object of this is to allow the students to voice themselves without the pressure of everyone else listening. Ms. Gruwell communicated to the students that she would not read their journal entries without her permission. Over weeks students became more and more comfortable expressing themselves not only through writing but through words. Journal writing is another important theme in this movie that allowed the students to grow as young adults and to better understand one another. Empowerment is one of the theme in the movie. Empowerment is the process of enhancing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes. Once Gruwell convinced her students of their self-worth, they began to see their potential in everything they do. They felt empowered to take academic and intellectual challenges in their classroom. The first 150 Freedom Writers all graduated from high school and may went on to attend college when most believed that they would not even make it through the ninth grade. The students started to believe that they had much power to be successful in school. Their teacher, Ms.Gruwell had believed that they had potential. This demonstrates and teaches the viewers how empowerment can affect and change the course of someone's life. Empowerment is very effective because when taken seriously like the 150 Freedom Writers who graduated they proved that no matter what background you come from you can still accomplish whatever goal you set. If each generation will take education serious then they will also make a big impact and be empowered to show the older generation that they are not the stereotypes that are made about them. As, Gruwell continues to work with the students, they begin the building progress to input determination in the classroom. Determination is not something that can be pushed on someone by someone else. It is a personal quality one possesses thats makes you want to continue trying to do or achieve something that presents itself as difficult. At the beginning of the movie you could say the students were determined to be against one another. Each “group” had a problem with one another, but for what reason? All they knew was that in the past they didn't get along so why would they now? Ms. Gruwell was determined to make these students realize that one, they had a lot in common and two, they had the potential to be so much more than “just another person from the neighborhood.” With a lot of hard work from both Ms. Gruwell and they students they both began to realize they had a lot to teach one another. By the end of the movie the students had a different focus, they were all determined to graduate and move on to the next chapter of their life. Ms.Gruwell's goal never changed. She continued to work with students and teaching them about how to improve not only their writing skills but also their lives. Not only is it important to have determined students but also to have an equally determined teacher or professor who is determined that each and every students realizes and understands the purpose and reasonings behind everything they learn in life. Having a determined teacher who is willing to put in extra hours with students to tutor or mentor students is very important. Teachers who show this type of determination does nothing but influence and show a student that they are capable of accomplishing any goal especially academic goals. It will also prepare students for the real world and be able to keep that same determination to be able to provide for themselves independently in the future.
In this movie the themes tolerance, journal writing, empowerment, determination, and freedom are significant and referred to throughout the film. Ms Gruwell took on a challenge that most would not. She took a chance. Gruwell fought everyday whether is be with her students, her boyfriend, or herself. This movie takes us through a journey of some not so pleasant lives and shows us that through staying determined and encouraging one to do better that it can really have a lasting affect on your life.This movie makes us look at the lives of other and not automatically judge, but understand different cultures, races, and experiences. The themes that were talked about in this essay are capable of turning any upcoming generation into very successful men and women and I really believe it's important because of the way economy is going and at the rate unemployment is rising. Change can not be taught, it has to be something within yourself that you want to transform to benefit you in the future.

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