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Freedom Writers makes strong statement on racial discrimination

August 11, 2008

Freedom Writers

By Renny Logan
<rlogan@hilite.org>

Freedom Writers Diary is a compelling novel, one which grabs its reader from the very beginning. The book is written in a way that is both easy and quick to read. While it can be said that this isn’t the most challenging book in the world, it puts up a more than a fair fight for most heartfelt book.

Freedom Writers Diary is a true story in which a first-year English teacher by the name of Erin Gruwell begins her career teaching a freshman class at a gang-infested school. Teaching her students more than just their grammar lessons, Gruwell lectures her class of mixed races on tolerance and freedom from the gang lifestyles they were born into. She also teaches them how to survive, no matter what obstacles may one day arise.

Interestingly enough, the book is no mere account of the story, but began as an assignment Gruwell gave her classes which she modeled after Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Anne Frank, as well as Bosnian Zlata Filipovic, had become a source of inspiration to Gruwell’s classes. Each student was to keep record of their lives in journals, writing daily entries. The book is a composition of those student diaries.

Names have been removed from the entries in order to both, as the Freedom Writers’ note, “protect (the entrant’s) anonymity and illustrate the universality of their experiences.” The reader can therefore relate more readily to a particular entry without another name being attached to it.

Gruwell’s lessons were not limited by the classroom either. She showed her students the impossible could happen by taking them on extravagant field trips and by bringing famous speakers to visit them. Included in this was the Freedom Writers’ trip to Washington, D.C. as well as entreating Miep Gies, the woman who housed Anne Frank during the Holocaust, to pay a visit to the group.

Though these events are only a few of what the class managed to accomplish, they in and of themselves are extraordinary.

Even more extraordinary than these successes, was the path Gruwell lead her students on. She not only bettered their high school years, but bestowed hope for the future upon them. In order to not ruin the ending, those interested should pick up the book to see how Gruwell accomplished that.

In all, the book is an account of Gruwell’s classes, beginning with her first class in their freshman year. The diaries follow that first class through its senior year, as well as including new additions over the years.

By the end of the book, the group of Freedom Writers had grown to 150 members. There is no doubt that this book is proof of the impact one person can have over many lives; in this case, 150 lives were affected. And, if all follows suit, that’s 150 lives that will go on to influence more. Freedom Writers Diary is a novel that deserves a chance.

Updated by mjiang · Filed Under Entertainment 

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