...The Freedom Writers Diary is a book that I truly enjoyed. It is a book broken down in diary form viewing the survival of a first year teacher and her students. This book shines light on real issues that these students as well as their teacher went through. These issues range from racism, death, and gang related violence. Although the only person that is named throughout the entire book is Ms. Gruwell, one can still identify and keep track of the situations that occur. Diary number two, by far was the most prevalent in my opinion. It gave the viewpoint of a white male student in a class where he was the minority. “What the hell am I doing in here? I’m the only white person in this English class! …Is this really where I’m supposed to be?” (P.8) This student made it clear that he felt really uncomfortable in a class full of “rejects”. Since most of the “rejects” were not white, he felt he shouldn’t have been in that class. The “rejects”, as he called them, were students that were labeled as problem students and or students with learning disabilities. Although this student had a learning disability, he felt that because of his race, he should have been placed in a high level class. Like many others he 2 authors .... These two essays are very similar because their subject .... to that improvident avarice..." These are writers who have .... work soon after he got his freedom and was .... (642 3 ) Kate...
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...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...
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...Freedom Writers When she realizes that her students are living in their own personal wars, she takes the Diary of Anne Frank, Romeo and Juliet (another gangster story) to read in class. She notices that her school is segregated by race and color. So, she divides her class with a colored tape taped to the middle of the floor, and she says, “ were going to play a game, o.k.?” This activity helps them realize that they are all fighting the same battles, and are living their lives very much in common. “You’re going to have fun I promise.” Look you can work on those workbooks til the bell rings or you can play a game.” This is called the line game, I’m going to ask you a question, if that question applies to you, you step on to the line then step back away for the next question. Easy right? First q How many of you have the new Snoop Dog album? Everyone steps up to the line. How many of you have seen Boys in the Hood? Again everyone steps up to the line. How many of you live in the projects? Most of them go up to the line. How many of you know someone, a friend or relative, who was or is in juvenile hall or jail? Everyone steps up to the line. How many of you have been in juvenile hall or jail for any length of time? How many of you know where to get drugs right now? How many of you know someone in a gang? All of them step up to the line. How many of you are gang members? Noone goes up to the line, but their lying. Stand on the line if you’ve lost a friend to gang...
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...Making a Difference Freedom Writers was a controversial movie based on a true story. Watching this movie it was clear that it was not going to be your average story about a teacher and her students, but instead it was much more than what was anticipated. It was hard not to be moved by the stories of each student and the difference this teacher was able to make in their lives. This story of a young, fairly inexperienced teacher named Erin Gruwell shows just what one person can accomplish when one cares as much as Erin did. She had to deal with much adversity while attempting to teach at-risk students who were dealing with their own every day battles. Erin gives her students a chance to share their own story by giving them each a notebook to write in about their life. The story of each student is brought to life through what they share on the pages of their own notebook. And this is how the title of the story, Freedom Writers was incorporated. Erin also learns, through a joke made on another student in the class, that they have never heard or know anything about the Holocaust. Erin is completely surprised and saddened to learn of their ignorance about such a horrific time in our world. After learning that her students were unaware of the atrocities of the Holocaust, Erin makes it her mission to make certain that her students learn what happened during World War II. After reading The Story of Anne Frank and visiting a Holocaust museum, the students...
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...A large problem facing Erin Gruwell in Freedom Writers (2007) was although an integrated school system was considered a good thing at this point in history, the integraton created some issues. Society was not looking at the individuals in each school and examining how this sudden integration of different cultures would affect those involved. By suddenly uprooting so many students and drastically changing their environment, many teens were effectd in an adverse manner and had no desire to participate in school or continue their education. Erin Gruwell became the sole pathfinder practitioner for these troubled teens (Brown, 2011, p. 91). She challenged authority within the school system and fought to create a better teaching environment. Another problem facing these students was the school administrations “white” view of teaching. The other teachers did not take the time or care enough to make the curriculum something the students could relate to. These inner city kids were surrounded by violence, racism, abuse and no home life or positive influences in their lives. Each student felt alone and that no one understood their life or story, they took some refuge and made friends with in their own cultures and gangs that were separated by race. The school administrators were more concerned with getting students through the school system then truly educating them or inspiring them to improve their lives. Since there was not trust between the students and teachers there was...
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...HI18 - C July 1, 2013 _____________________________________________________________________________________ To many of us, history is simply a class you take to be able to learn and memorize certain dates, events and people that have tremendous significance to a country, nation or even community. If you view it this way, you are missing the whole point of history. There is more to the objectivity of history. The very essence of history is that it leaves a trace of emotion by these so called significant events in one’s and/or other people’s lives – much like what Erin did in the movie, Freedom Writers. Erin is one of the rare kind of teachers that teach you more than what the curriculum offers. More than just a teacher-student relationship, she has offered and developed friendship, trust and hope for the students of Room 203 and more importantly, bridged the gap among her students that has been constraining their way of interacting with each another. Erin’s first encounter with her class did not seem to be what she expected at all. There were no signs of respect for anyone in the room as the students formed cliques, isolated themselves from those who belonged to another race or gang and continued chitchatting despite the presence of their teacher. Nevertheless, Erin put up with this kind of attitude from her students and strived to teach them the best way she could – through innovation. She planned field trips, inspiring talks by Holocaust survivors, Anne Frank’s guardian...
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...In Erin Gruwell’s The Freedom Writers Diary, Ms. Gruwell, a teacher, helps change students for the better. Ms. Gruwell starts her new job at Wilson High School. Her new co-workers start to judge her for that class she is assigned to. She is assigned to teach delinquent students because they are failing and other teachers refuse to teach them. However, Ms. Gruwell is determined to teach her students new information. The reason why she is so determined is because only a few know about everything in the world. While Ms. Gruwell tries to teach the class anarchy occurs throughout the class. Fights breakout and bulling occurs because of different races and gangs. She breaks it up and yells at the students. Ms. Gruwell then assigns everyone to start...
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...In the book, The Freedom Writers Diary, some things were not added into the movie. They changed the perspective, so instead of the students telling the story and the teacher secondary, like in the book, the teacher (Ms. Gruwell) tells the story, and the students are secondary. Also, the entries are worse and more horrifying than in the movie, like abuse, drugs, peer pressure, illness, and violence. I think that these changes, in the book version to the movie version, were to have a 3rd person point of view story of the kids, and not a 1st person point of view like in the book. When this story is in 3rd person point of view, we learn the struggle for Ms. Gruwell and the hardships on the students. In the movie, the screenplay writers added in a side story about Erin Gruwell and her husband. I believe that they did this because while the students are out on the streets with their gangs or friends getting in trouble or helping themselves getting better, we want to see how Ms. Gruwell is reacting to the students and what her family thinks of them. It shows what she thinks, wants, plans, and does to help the students and how passionate and caring she is aslo. After seeing the movie, some characters were like how I pictured them from the book, and others were way off. Eva was sort of how I pictured her, but not all of her. Her attitude, her hair, and what she wore is what I pictured of her, but she doesn’t seem like a “gangster”. I also pictured Marcus to look poorer...
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...Film Application Paper The Freedom Writers Organization Development Seminar Two Prof. Williams Rebecca Shafer 1/17/2012 Film Application Paper: The Freedom Writers In the case of the Freedom Writers, the teacher was the Practitioner and the students were the team. When she first came into that situation the team was not a team they were disorganized and had no sense of teamwork. At the time the teacher/practitioner came into the classroom and was an outsider was not sure what exactly to expect or exactly what route to take. As the teacher/practitioner spent more time with the class, she learned a little each day of what to expect from the class and through trial and error was finding a way to make them a team. The teacher had to use different techniques to find out which technique was going to work the best with the class to make them a team. Once she got the class to start to trust her then she could start using other techniques to get them closer together. She found that she had to get creative in order for them to listen to her and also for them to get involved with the rest of the class. As an outsider coming in she not only got resistance from the class that she was trying to get to work together but she also met resistance from other teachers and faculty members as well. Erin Gruwell, was faced with all kinds of issues. She had to look at the whole situation from an outsider’s position. She had to diagnose all the problems of the class and the faculty...
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...break through the invisible barrier that kept her students from learning. What she did know is that everyone in the school had written off these teens. After learning about the hardships in these teens’ lives — an environment full of racism, rejection and the tragedy of seeing no hope for the future — she understood why they saw no point in reading and writing. Gruwell also understood their need for self-expression, so her students began writing anonymous journal entries about their lives. After seeing a film about the Freedom Riders, a group of teenagers who showed remarkable bravery during the Civil Rights Movement, the class decided to call themselves the Freedom Writers. In 1999, their entries became a best-selling book called The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. In 2007, Hilary Swank played Gruwell in the Freedom Writers film. Today, Gruwell runs The Freedom Writers Foundation, which she started in 1997. The foundation trains educators to use innovative techniques to change the world, one class at a time. Gruwell earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of...
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...REACTION PAPER “FREEDOM WRITERS” By: Racel Emmanuelle R. Mendoza There is an obvious discrimination shown in the movie “Freedom Writers”, where everybody hates everybody and they got no choice but to live in a world full of pandemonium. Random cultural implications are shown in the movie. Where one has to accept his/her society since birth, or someone has to really join a gang to keep up and belong to a hood. In the case of the students in the movie, they are just simply hopeless and what they all just do is to keep raging flames in their hearts. Until one tough and undeniably smart professor came on their way to take action – Ms. Gruwell. As Ms. Gruwell came into the movie, I just thought that there will really be one person who will unexpectedly cross one’s life and lead you towards impunity. Same with the world or certain country where there is rampant chaos and a peacemaker leads to fight for the right. At first, Ms. Gruwell had dismay that she wasn’t able to understand everything. And because she thinks and considers the factors she sees in her current endeavor, she came up with a very unique plan that a usual professor wouldn’t think about. – FREEDOM WRITING. I guess, the maker of the movie wanted to disseminate how the therapy of writing one’s feelings comes into such a relief to those whose minds are insane and broken. This is a very good twist in the movie, where in cultural liberalism takes place. Series of difficulties are shown in the movie, and how brave Ms...
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...A large problem facing Erin Gruwell in Freedom Writers (2007) was although an integrated school system was considered a good thing at this point in history, the integraton created some issues. Society was not looking at the individuals in each school and examining how this sudden integration of different cultures would affect those involved. By suddenly uprooting so many students and drastically changing their environment, many teens were effectd in an adverse manner and had no desire to participate in school or continue their education. Erin Gruwell became the sole pathfinder practitioner for these troubled teens (Brown, 2011, p. 91). She challenged authority within the school system and fought to create a better teaching environment. Another problem facing these students was the school administrations “white” view of teaching. The other teachers did not take the time or care enough to make the curriculum something the students could relate to. These inner city kids were surrounded by violence, racism, abuse and no home life or positive influences in their lives. Each student felt alone and that no one understood their life or story, they took some refuge and made friends with in their own cultures and gangs that were separated by race. The school administrators were more concerned with getting students through the school system then truly educating them or inspiring them to improve their lives. Since there was not trust between the students and teachers...
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...PRACTICAL COMPETENCE COMMON ASSESSMENT #2 EDCI 5790 Advanced Instructional Strategies Jillian Dietchman In the movie Freedom Writers, Erin Gruwell is challenged with the task of teaching at-risk students and inspiring them to learn tolerance as well as apply themselves. Ms. Gruwell recognizes and applies principles and strategies for communicating effectively in varied practice and learning contexts. During this movie, Ms. Gruwell made learning meaningful and relevant to her students by appreciating their diversity and finding ways to connect their backgrounds to ideas they related to. She encouraged her students and helped them to self-direct their learning. Ms. Gruwell considered where students were coming from, what their lives were...
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...Erin Gruwell, author of “The Freedom Writers Diary” and founder of the Freedom Writers Foundation, spoke on encouraging diversity and understanding in a lecture titled “Teaching Tolerance” in Moreau Hall’s Little Theater on Friday. Penn High School sophomore Katie Laiman approached Saint Mary’s with the idea to invite Gruwell to speak as a part of Girls Scout Gold Award project. “I think this talk was really impactful, and I hope everyone that was here takes a lot from it,” Laiman said. Gruwell said she became a teacher because she wanted to stand up for kids who did not have a voice. “Before there was a book, before there was a movie, there was a group of students who were tired of being invisible, tired of being on the fringe and just wanted to matter, just wanted to be heard,” she said. Gruwell said when she was in graduate education classes she noticed a disconnection between theory and practice. “I realized this when I walked into my first classroom and my students could care not less about stories, and books, and Shakespeare and tales about Homer,” she said. “My students cared about would I make it home alive, am I gonna get home and see my hardworking mom with those cockroaches and those rats in that tiny one bedroom housing project, and will there be dinner, would their be food on the table, are those cupboards going to be bare again.” Gruwell said all of her students buried friends due to senseless gang violence by the age of 14, and it made...
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...Freedom Writers Diaries – Their Story, Their Words, Their Future One of the main concerns that Erin Gruwell would face was teaching a group of kids that the school system process having an integrated school was a good thing in front of board members that had issues at that certain time in history. The school system did not look at how this integration with mixed cultures would affect everyone involved. This system would suddenly take them out of their own element and put them with mixed cultures that would drastically change their way of looking at life. This change would only drive the kids back future with no desire to learn or participate in continuing their education. Comparing this to the business world, you would look at Erin Gruwell would become a style of pathfinder practitioner for the inner city mixed culture teenagers (Brown, 2011 p 92). Erin Gruwell could see what potential each one of her students had and would fight the school system to help create a different approach and style for the kids to open their minds toward a positive life with a future. This is compared to big business or a corporation showing how starting out in a large environment how one can get lost like a child in a large school. Many may want to avoid taking chances or even give ideas because of stepping on someone’s toes in business or getting shot at from another child in school because of the way they looked at someone. Another issue facing Erin Gruwell was how administration would look...
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