The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing To Change Themselves and the World Around Them. By The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell

 

The Freedom Writers Diary is a collection of journal excerpts, drawn from the writings of 23-year-old high school teacher Erin Gruwell’s students. A new teacher, Gruwell was given a classroom full of at-risk students – but upon intercepting a racially degrading cartoon, she compared the cruelty of the cartoon to the propaganda that led to the Holocaust. When she realized that the students didn’t even know what the Holocaust was, she knew it was time to make a stand against intolerance.

 

In order to help the students understand their actions, Gruwell had her students read Anne Frank’s diary, eventually leading to a classroom fundraiser that would see Miep Gies, the woman who sheltered Frank’s family during World War II, visit Gruwell’s classroom. As a daily exercise, Gruwell also encouraged her students to write diaries of their life experiences, so that they could draw parallels between the racially-charged wars of the past and what they were experiencing in their own lives. The writings of these students reflect the racism, violence, and abuse that were a part of their daily lives.

 

The book itself is divided into topics according to their reflections on the readings for each term, and these are complimented by intriguing selections from Gruwell’s personal diary. Reading the stories from both sides truly allows one to get a sense of how these students developed and changed over time, as well as provides a sense of Gruwell’s personal struggles in trying to provide her students with hope for the future.

 

The Freedom Writers Diary is a vivid and inspiring account of what it means to persevere, even when life seems to be falling apart around you. As a testament to their unexpected and courageous success in changing their own lives, Gruwell was able to publish this book in their honor. In fact, all of the Freedom Writers from Gruwell’s class have now graduated and moved on to college – an incredible feat for a group of students who were barely expected to live past their eighteenth birthdays.