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The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them
Shocked by the teenage violence she witnessed during the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, Erin Gruwell became a teacher at a high school rampant with hostility and racial intolerance. For many of these students–whose ranks included substance abusers, gang members, the homeless, and victims of abuse–Gruwell was the first person to treat them with dignity, to believe in their potential and help them see it themselves. Soon, their loyalty towards their teacher and burning enthusiasm to help end violence and intolerance became a force of its own. Inspired by reading The Diary of Anne Frank and meeting Zlata Filipovic (the eleven-year old girl who wrote of her life in Sarajevo during the civil war), the students began a joint diary of their inner-city upbringings. Told through anonymous entries to protect their identities and allow for complete candor, The Freedom Writers Diary is filled with astounding vignettes from 150 students who, like civil rights activist Rosa Parks and the Freedom Riders, heard society tell them where to go–and refused to listen.
Proceeds from this book benefit the Freedom Writers Foundation, an organization set up to provide scholarships for underprivieged youth and to train teachers
Proceeds from this book benefit the Freedom Writers Foundation, an organization set up to provide scholarships for underprivieged youth and to train teachers
277 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1999
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June 26, 2013
Erin Gruwell was a first-year high school teacher. She was teaching tough kids in Long Beach, CA. Her students are the lowest at the school so she begins with diaries written by others to have them create diaries of their own. She was able to stay with these students for all four years of high school. Then she decided to teach college to new teachers.
I teach. I teach well. An yet I find myself discouraged when I read books like this. Not because of the state of education or students in America. I find it depressing that to be lifted up as a good teacher you must sacrifice everything else in your life. She gives up virtually all her free time, her marriage and sometimes even her reputation. Perhaps this is why she was only a public school educator for 4 years.
As a friend put it: "What the the educational system in America needs are distance runners not flashy sprinters." If you are a new teacher, please don't read this book. Find a mentor who has been teaching for 10 years. It will be far more practical and helpful for you.
The best review of the movie (which touches on many of my concerns about the book) I have seen: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/opi...
I teach. I teach well. An yet I find myself discouraged when I read books like this. Not because of the state of education or students in America. I find it depressing that to be lifted up as a good teacher you must sacrifice everything else in your life. She gives up virtually all her free time, her marriage and sometimes even her reputation. Perhaps this is why she was only a public school educator for 4 years.
As a friend put it: "What the the educational system in America needs are distance runners not flashy sprinters." If you are a new teacher, please don't read this book. Find a mentor who has been teaching for 10 years. It will be far more practical and helpful for you.
The best review of the movie (which touches on many of my concerns about the book) I have seen: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/opi...
December 26, 2007
I will begin by stating that I did not read this entire book. I made it through 50 or 60 pages. I had not had any intent to read it, as I have heard more than enough stories about the fish out of water young white teacher who is able to "save" the inner city youth from the apparent inevitability of failure. A coworker strongly recommended the book to me and actually put it in my hand, so I decided to give it a chance.
As I read one journal entry after another, I was puzzled by the fact that every entry of every child seemed to be written in almost the same exact voice. The vocabulary and expressions used were not what I would expect to hear from a group of high school freshmen, particularly in a group of kids that was previously underachieving and hated reading and writing. Inner city dialect was juxtaposed with difficult vocabulary and phrasing that seemed adult and dated on almost every page. I skimmed through the rest of the book to see if there was any information on how the journals were edited, or if they went through any type of writing process with them (typically a journal wouldn't go through revision) but didn't see any explanation. Maybe I was just missing something. There also was not any description of how Ms. Gruwell was able to elicit the trust of all of her students so quickly (so that they would be comfortable writing about their crimes and personal issues) and get them to write pages and pages when they had refused to do any writing before. It seemed that she was able to have them writing full entries that were eloquent and insightful within the first month or two.
I know that there is truth to these stories. I know that this is a real class and Ms. Gruwell is a real teacher. I just can't get past the belief that these diaries are not fully authentic and that these words have been reshaped somewhere along the line; how can I tell how much and by whom? Why wasn't this addressed? Perhaps if the diaries were in their original form, complete with spelling and grammar errors, it would make more sense. As it was, I just couldn't trust it. These are real kids. They have real stories. I want to hear them in their words.
I would love to hear other people's opinions on this. Did anyone else have this problem?
As I read one journal entry after another, I was puzzled by the fact that every entry of every child seemed to be written in almost the same exact voice. The vocabulary and expressions used were not what I would expect to hear from a group of high school freshmen, particularly in a group of kids that was previously underachieving and hated reading and writing. Inner city dialect was juxtaposed with difficult vocabulary and phrasing that seemed adult and dated on almost every page. I skimmed through the rest of the book to see if there was any information on how the journals were edited, or if they went through any type of writing process with them (typically a journal wouldn't go through revision) but didn't see any explanation. Maybe I was just missing something. There also was not any description of how Ms. Gruwell was able to elicit the trust of all of her students so quickly (so that they would be comfortable writing about their crimes and personal issues) and get them to write pages and pages when they had refused to do any writing before. It seemed that she was able to have them writing full entries that were eloquent and insightful within the first month or two.
I know that there is truth to these stories. I know that this is a real class and Ms. Gruwell is a real teacher. I just can't get past the belief that these diaries are not fully authentic and that these words have been reshaped somewhere along the line; how can I tell how much and by whom? Why wasn't this addressed? Perhaps if the diaries were in their original form, complete with spelling and grammar errors, it would make more sense. As it was, I just couldn't trust it. These are real kids. They have real stories. I want to hear them in their words.
I would love to hear other people's opinions on this. Did anyone else have this problem?
October 3, 2025
The Freedom Writers Diaryis one of the best books I have read in 2025 It is the true story of a high school teacher, Erin Gruwell, who was given a classroom of students who were viewed as troubled and "sub-par."
Gruwell was a fairly new teacher. She was white and all the students in her class, except for one, were Asian, Latino, and African-American. Gangs, drugs, violence, and death surrounded most of her students' lives. One day in class, a crude cartoon of a student was being passed around. Gruwell discovered it and stated that caricatures of others is what happened during the Holocaust. She asked her students to raise their hands if they knew about the Holocaust. Not a single hand went up. That was an inflection point for Gruwell.
Gruwell made tolerance the core of her curriculum at that point. She brought history to life with new books, guest speakers, and field trips. Gruwell took on two other jobs so that she could help pay for the items she needed for her students and the curriculum.
Students kept diaries of their experiences and that is what is captured in The Freedom Writers Diary. I cried many times throughout this book. There are also two movies about the Freedom Writers. One movie is called Freedom Writers. The documentary is called Freedom Writers: Stories From the Heart.
Some memorable passages include:
* Be the kind of people to have enough passion to change the world.
* Excuses will not bring about success. Adversity is not something you walk with, it is something you leap over.
* Silence will get you nowhere in life.
* Adversity makes warriors of us all.
* Anne Frank: I want to go on living even after my death.
* Evil prevails when good people do nothing.
Teachers are AMAZING! Each of us can remember teachers who believed in us and encouraged us to think differently, to think and dream bigger. There are many teachers in my family, including my daughter, daughter-in-law, stepmom, and aunt. Teachers create our future leaders.
Other impactful books about incredible teachers and librarians are:
Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream
That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America
Literature and the New Culture Wars: Triggers, Cancel Culture, and the Teacher's Dilemma
I highly, highly recommend The Freedom Writers Diary
Gruwell was a fairly new teacher. She was white and all the students in her class, except for one, were Asian, Latino, and African-American. Gangs, drugs, violence, and death surrounded most of her students' lives. One day in class, a crude cartoon of a student was being passed around. Gruwell discovered it and stated that caricatures of others is what happened during the Holocaust. She asked her students to raise their hands if they knew about the Holocaust. Not a single hand went up. That was an inflection point for Gruwell.
Gruwell made tolerance the core of her curriculum at that point. She brought history to life with new books, guest speakers, and field trips. Gruwell took on two other jobs so that she could help pay for the items she needed for her students and the curriculum.
Students kept diaries of their experiences and that is what is captured in The Freedom Writers Diary. I cried many times throughout this book. There are also two movies about the Freedom Writers. One movie is called Freedom Writers. The documentary is called Freedom Writers: Stories From the Heart.
Some memorable passages include:
* Be the kind of people to have enough passion to change the world.
* Excuses will not bring about success. Adversity is not something you walk with, it is something you leap over.
* Silence will get you nowhere in life.
* Adversity makes warriors of us all.
* Anne Frank: I want to go on living even after my death.
* Evil prevails when good people do nothing.
Teachers are AMAZING! Each of us can remember teachers who believed in us and encouraged us to think differently, to think and dream bigger. There are many teachers in my family, including my daughter, daughter-in-law, stepmom, and aunt. Teachers create our future leaders.
Other impactful books about incredible teachers and librarians are:
Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream
That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America
Literature and the New Culture Wars: Triggers, Cancel Culture, and the Teacher's Dilemma
I highly, highly recommend The Freedom Writers Diary
April 17, 2017
True, this collective diary depicts racism quite poignantly, but what touched me deeply is this: how the teens use writing to come out of the confinement of racism and resurrect their self-esteem.
A powerful, captivating narrative.
A powerful, captivating narrative.
May 7, 2010
Unbelievable (and I mean that in a bad way)
I teach ninth grade English and reading at an underperforming high school in California, and I can say one thing with certainty: this book was not written by high schoolers.
As others have pointed out, every diary entry reads like it could have been written by the same person. If you took ten children who were all of the same culture and language and grew up with the same teachers, you couldn’t get them to sound as alike as these students do. Not only that, but the quality of the sentences and the depth of thought are outstanding. Any one of these students wrote well enough at age 14 or 15 that by now we should have several dozen professional authors who call Ms. Gruwell’s classroom the place where they learned their trade.
I understand that there would have to be some editing for clarity and readability, but the way that each diary entry leads perfectly to the next seems deliberately manipulated. I have no reason to doubt that the events described in the diary entries are true. You could argue that it’s the stories themselves, not the way they’re written that matters, but I disagree: the very thing I want to hear is the students’ voices. I feel like there should be a disclaimer: “Based on true journal entries.”
Tell me whether this sounds like a ninth grader from a reading intervention class at a gang-infested high school, or a professional who’s trying to play one:
The more I thought about this, the more the concept overwhelmed me. I began to analyze and reflect on my life, my many encounters with injustice and discrimination. It sounds strange, somewhat on the line between irony and absurdity, to think that people would rather label and judge something as significant as each other but completely bypass a peanut.
Excuse me, but if that’s what the students who are at “basic” level write, I’d love to read a book written by the proficient and advanced students from Wilson High.
I’ve also taught English learners for the past five years. I know what they sound like, and this isn’t it:
Like the life of my family, Tony’s life has been permanently altered by the terror of war. He was a survivor of ethnic cleansing; we survived a revolution that turned into terrorism. Even though the Bosnian war was one of ethnicity and religion, it was just as senseless as the terrorism that ransacked my country. It forced many to leave their homes, and their lives.
These are the words of a 10th grader who moved from Peru when he was ten years old? But wait, there’s more:
It lifted my spirit to see his joy despite his tragic story. Though it hurt him to smile, he laughed anyway. Though he couldn’t understand a word we were saying, he understood that we felt his pain. We too knew what it felt like to live amid war.
That’s fantastic. But you want me to believe that this was written by an average student from Ms. Gruwell’s classroom? I’d say that a lot of liberty was taken with the Freedom Writers’ writing.
I teach ninth grade English and reading at an underperforming high school in California, and I can say one thing with certainty: this book was not written by high schoolers.
As others have pointed out, every diary entry reads like it could have been written by the same person. If you took ten children who were all of the same culture and language and grew up with the same teachers, you couldn’t get them to sound as alike as these students do. Not only that, but the quality of the sentences and the depth of thought are outstanding. Any one of these students wrote well enough at age 14 or 15 that by now we should have several dozen professional authors who call Ms. Gruwell’s classroom the place where they learned their trade.
I understand that there would have to be some editing for clarity and readability, but the way that each diary entry leads perfectly to the next seems deliberately manipulated. I have no reason to doubt that the events described in the diary entries are true. You could argue that it’s the stories themselves, not the way they’re written that matters, but I disagree: the very thing I want to hear is the students’ voices. I feel like there should be a disclaimer: “Based on true journal entries.”
Tell me whether this sounds like a ninth grader from a reading intervention class at a gang-infested high school, or a professional who’s trying to play one:
The more I thought about this, the more the concept overwhelmed me. I began to analyze and reflect on my life, my many encounters with injustice and discrimination. It sounds strange, somewhat on the line between irony and absurdity, to think that people would rather label and judge something as significant as each other but completely bypass a peanut.
Excuse me, but if that’s what the students who are at “basic” level write, I’d love to read a book written by the proficient and advanced students from Wilson High.
I’ve also taught English learners for the past five years. I know what they sound like, and this isn’t it:
Like the life of my family, Tony’s life has been permanently altered by the terror of war. He was a survivor of ethnic cleansing; we survived a revolution that turned into terrorism. Even though the Bosnian war was one of ethnicity and religion, it was just as senseless as the terrorism that ransacked my country. It forced many to leave their homes, and their lives.
These are the words of a 10th grader who moved from Peru when he was ten years old? But wait, there’s more:
It lifted my spirit to see his joy despite his tragic story. Though it hurt him to smile, he laughed anyway. Though he couldn’t understand a word we were saying, he understood that we felt his pain. We too knew what it felt like to live amid war.
That’s fantastic. But you want me to believe that this was written by an average student from Ms. Gruwell’s classroom? I’d say that a lot of liberty was taken with the Freedom Writers’ writing.
February 19, 2008
I was pretty disappointed by this book from the get-go. Diaries and journals are interesting because you are able to experience someone else's life in real-time. Part of that experience is being immersed in the language, personality, and emotion of the author. The students idolize Anne Frank and Zlata, but don't allow any of their own voices into their writing. Each entry sounds just like the next with only occasional sentences that feel "real" and un-edited.
Good writers capture the energy of their experience, and these students have seen too much to be as bland as these examples portray. The few poems recited - although not great - at least convey some emotion. It's a shame since some of these stories are extremely powerful - issues such as homelessness, child abuse, domestic violence, street violence, peer pressure... all expressed in cookie cutter language that could all be written by the same person.
I expected to see a realistic progression in the journal entries; I wanted to see improvement as these students grew as writers and people. I appreciate a variety of perspectives, but I think the book suffered from not having a consistent batch of identifiable characters that progressed over the course of four years. Anonymous entries further their cause, but detract from the impact and make it harder to "own" the characters as you read.
The book certainly got better as I read. The students certainly had some amazing opportunities, and I was proud to see them develop as people as the book progressed. Perhaps as they got better as writers over the years the later entries were less heavily edited and retained more flavor.
I really wish there had been more information about how the book was compiled and edited. Certainly she couldn't have gotten these students to write the long-winded and introspective entries at the beginning of her first semester. Without that information many of these entries feel so forced and unbelieveable that I found it difficult to read them at all. Even an afterword explaining that the pieces were elaborated on and edited before the published final draft would be helpful. I can understand the students wanting to showcase their best work, but I'd like to see more information about the process.
From an education perspective... I felt like I wasn't getting the whole story about Ms. Grunell and her resources. It's wonderful that she had the support that she did, but it is so glazed over that it seems like it should be within any teacher's grasp. That doesn't seem quite fair to many of the amazing teachers that struggle just to keep their head afloat. I know that she has another book that is more focused on her methods, and maybe that has more of what I was looking for.
Good writers capture the energy of their experience, and these students have seen too much to be as bland as these examples portray. The few poems recited - although not great - at least convey some emotion. It's a shame since some of these stories are extremely powerful - issues such as homelessness, child abuse, domestic violence, street violence, peer pressure... all expressed in cookie cutter language that could all be written by the same person.
I expected to see a realistic progression in the journal entries; I wanted to see improvement as these students grew as writers and people. I appreciate a variety of perspectives, but I think the book suffered from not having a consistent batch of identifiable characters that progressed over the course of four years. Anonymous entries further their cause, but detract from the impact and make it harder to "own" the characters as you read.
The book certainly got better as I read. The students certainly had some amazing opportunities, and I was proud to see them develop as people as the book progressed. Perhaps as they got better as writers over the years the later entries were less heavily edited and retained more flavor.
I really wish there had been more information about how the book was compiled and edited. Certainly she couldn't have gotten these students to write the long-winded and introspective entries at the beginning of her first semester. Without that information many of these entries feel so forced and unbelieveable that I found it difficult to read them at all. Even an afterword explaining that the pieces were elaborated on and edited before the published final draft would be helpful. I can understand the students wanting to showcase their best work, but I'd like to see more information about the process.
From an education perspective... I felt like I wasn't getting the whole story about Ms. Grunell and her resources. It's wonderful that she had the support that she did, but it is so glazed over that it seems like it should be within any teacher's grasp. That doesn't seem quite fair to many of the amazing teachers that struggle just to keep their head afloat. I know that she has another book that is more focused on her methods, and maybe that has more of what I was looking for.
June 22, 2007
Freedom Writers by Erin Gruwell is one of the most interesting books I've ever read.It is about how one teacher(Erin Gruwell) makes it her goal to change the way students in her class view the world.The students in her class view the world as one big war zone and have their own goal which is to be able to survive the streets without being killed.Mrs.Gruwell takes it up on herself to show the kids the theirs more to life then gang violence trying to do so she risks losing her job and husband.She does alot for these kids she get two extra jobs jus so she can take her students on feild trips to see life changing people,and to fancy resturants to show the kids that theres is more to life them the grimy streets they live on.Through out the story you see how the kids treat her sometimes wih no respect because they think that she'll do the same ting everyone else in their life has done which is lie to them.But you'll see that by not giving up on the students like they've already done on them selves you see how they grow on each other and become one big family and start to become cool friends with people outside of their race.
May 10, 2008
I work in an inner city school. This doesn't quite touch on the way inner city schools really are. For instance, all the kids' writing is in standard English. My kids, when expressing how they really feel, use what I call Urban English. I just couldn't hear my kids in this book. I related a bit to the teacher's writing. But there are a lot of realities that were not portrayed in this book. For instance, the teacher had her own room --- the same room --- for the 4 years she taught. The reality of my urban setting is quite different. I have taught in about 15 different classrooms in the 3 years I've been teaching. Usually, in the urban schools I know, teachers move from room to room each period. This deeply impacts our instruction. I also hated the way the union was portrayed as protecting the seniority of teachers over the best interests of the kids. Unions in schools is a very complex situation, and, as a union activist, I feel compelled to point this out. My union has done things like ensure that I get a bathroom break, books in my classroom, and paper for the copy machine.
November 21, 2011
The Freedom Writers Diary is an amazing, moving, and inspirational piece of art. It consists of a collection of diary entries written by the 150 Freedom Writers and their English teacher, Ms. Gurwell. All of these Freedom Writers are students at Wilson High School in Long Beach California, where they have been placed in a below average English class with Ms. Gurwell as their teacher. This is Ms.Gurwell's first teaching experience, and it will have a lasting impact on her. One of the first assignments she gives is for everyone to keep a journal, no one knew just how powerful these journals were to become, not even Ms. Gurwell. Through out these entries you will learn about the hard lives of these incredible individuals, their amazing English teacher, and their journeys towards changing the world and becoming a second family.
When you thick of Long Beach the things that come to your mind are probably beautiful beaches, expensive boutiques, and magnificent mansions. However for the Freedom Writes they saw something much different. They saw a hostel environment filled with corruption, hate, and discrimination. There were multiple gangs, each of different races, causing riots in the streets. It was dangerous for some of these student to just walk home from the bus stop, let alone go out at night. Many of these students lost their innocence at a very young age, never having the opportunity to be a kid. In their journal entries they describe to you first hand the horrors they faced including: gang violence, shootings, the murder/loss of loved ones and friends, the effects of drugs and alcohol, abusive relationships, molesters, and rapes. They felt as though they were at a dead end with no way to turn around, until they met Ms. Gurwell. She couldn't believe the way they viewed their life and refused to accept it. In an attempt to change the way they though about themselves and each other, she decided to change her lesson plan to studying the Holocaust, hoping to teach them about tolerance.
Ms. Gurwell provided everyone in the class with a copy of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl to jump start into her lesson of tolerance. At first the students were reluctant to learn, but eventually started to read the book. They were shocked by how well they could relate to Anne. They said they too felt as if they were living trough a war but an "undeclared war". Many of the students wanted to continue learning about the Holocaust and even wrote letters to Meip (the woman who protected Anne and her family during the war) , who would later become a close friend of theirs'. Ms. Gurwell was shocked by their response and continued on, having them read Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo. The students connected once again with the author of this incredible true story, so Ms. Gurwell had them also write letters to Zlata, who had survived her
war. She challenged them in their letters to invite Zlata to Wilson, and the unthinkable happened. She came.
Ms. Gurwell went on to have her core group of students for all four years they were at Wilson, and continued to receive more kids as the years went on. Everyone wanted to be in her class because it was the one place people said they felt wanted, needed, and safe. They would become a family, and together have a lasting impact on the world around them. As their final project Ms. Gurwell had them compile their journals, which they had been keeping for four year, into a book of their own. She would even get 35 computers donated to them from John Tu, to help aid them in their process. While writing this book they would officially gain their name The Freedom Writers based off of The Freedom Riders, who were a group of American and African American student who rode on a bus through the South to protest against discrimination. Their book would also lead them into incredible journeys such as a trip to Washington DC, where they hand delivered their book to the secretary of education Riley, and going to New York City to accept the spirit of Anne Frank award. ( It was the first time this award was given to a group of people and not an individual.) The Freedom Writers had done the impossible, they had gone from a group of kids in a below average English class to published author, advocates for change, and people who believed in their bright future ahead of them.
This book is by far one of the best books I have ever read. It truly opens up your eyes to the world around you, grabbing your attention and refusing to let go. I, even someone 16 years younger then the average student in this book, was able to easily relate to their stories. It was also genuinely inspirational. I always knew I wanted to change the world, but now after reading about the Freedom Writers I know I can. I also was inspired by Ms. Gurwell, I though I wanted to become a teacher but now regardless of where I end up in life I know I want to do something involving the empowerment of the youth, because they are the future of tomorrow.
When you thick of Long Beach the things that come to your mind are probably beautiful beaches, expensive boutiques, and magnificent mansions. However for the Freedom Writes they saw something much different. They saw a hostel environment filled with corruption, hate, and discrimination. There were multiple gangs, each of different races, causing riots in the streets. It was dangerous for some of these student to just walk home from the bus stop, let alone go out at night. Many of these students lost their innocence at a very young age, never having the opportunity to be a kid. In their journal entries they describe to you first hand the horrors they faced including: gang violence, shootings, the murder/loss of loved ones and friends, the effects of drugs and alcohol, abusive relationships, molesters, and rapes. They felt as though they were at a dead end with no way to turn around, until they met Ms. Gurwell. She couldn't believe the way they viewed their life and refused to accept it. In an attempt to change the way they though about themselves and each other, she decided to change her lesson plan to studying the Holocaust, hoping to teach them about tolerance.
Ms. Gurwell provided everyone in the class with a copy of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl to jump start into her lesson of tolerance. At first the students were reluctant to learn, but eventually started to read the book. They were shocked by how well they could relate to Anne. They said they too felt as if they were living trough a war but an "undeclared war". Many of the students wanted to continue learning about the Holocaust and even wrote letters to Meip (the woman who protected Anne and her family during the war) , who would later become a close friend of theirs'. Ms. Gurwell was shocked by their response and continued on, having them read Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo. The students connected once again with the author of this incredible true story, so Ms. Gurwell had them also write letters to Zlata, who had survived her
war. She challenged them in their letters to invite Zlata to Wilson, and the unthinkable happened. She came.
Ms. Gurwell went on to have her core group of students for all four years they were at Wilson, and continued to receive more kids as the years went on. Everyone wanted to be in her class because it was the one place people said they felt wanted, needed, and safe. They would become a family, and together have a lasting impact on the world around them. As their final project Ms. Gurwell had them compile their journals, which they had been keeping for four year, into a book of their own. She would even get 35 computers donated to them from John Tu, to help aid them in their process. While writing this book they would officially gain their name The Freedom Writers based off of The Freedom Riders, who were a group of American and African American student who rode on a bus through the South to protest against discrimination. Their book would also lead them into incredible journeys such as a trip to Washington DC, where they hand delivered their book to the secretary of education Riley, and going to New York City to accept the spirit of Anne Frank award. ( It was the first time this award was given to a group of people and not an individual.) The Freedom Writers had done the impossible, they had gone from a group of kids in a below average English class to published author, advocates for change, and people who believed in their bright future ahead of them.
This book is by far one of the best books I have ever read. It truly opens up your eyes to the world around you, grabbing your attention and refusing to let go. I, even someone 16 years younger then the average student in this book, was able to easily relate to their stories. It was also genuinely inspirational. I always knew I wanted to change the world, but now after reading about the Freedom Writers I know I can. I also was inspired by Ms. Gurwell, I though I wanted to become a teacher but now regardless of where I end up in life I know I want to do something involving the empowerment of the youth, because they are the future of tomorrow.
January 16, 2019
Basic Premise: First-year teacher Erin Gruwell is given the traditional assignment of her position: the classes none of the other teachers want. She goes on to inspire them to read, write, travel, and go to college.
I almost feel guilty for giving this book two stars instead of five. I mean, it's an inspiring story, so it should have blown my mind, right?
The book is made up of students' diary entries, so from the get-go the reader has to know that this is not professional writing. It shows. At times, the repetition of topics started to actually irritate me. It took me far longer to read this book than it probably should have, simply because I kept getting bored with it. How's that going to inspire my special needs sophomore English class?
I've heard that some people have problems with the language and some of the content of the stories (sex, drugs, gangs, etc.). Frankly, I had no problem there. These are diary entries. Honesty is to be expected, and real life today (or in the '90s) is not an episode of The Brady Bunch. Where I had a problem was in the endless repetition of the kids saying the exact same things, telling the same stories, with little variation in voice or tone.
It IS an inspiring story. I have to give it that. These kids dealt with a lot, overcame a lot, and seem to have become better people for it. Frankly, I remember the classes I had to teach my first year, and the juvenile delinquents (in some cases this was real truth) in those classes. I wracked my brain daily, as Gruwell did, coming up with ways to not only keep them from tying me to my lectern, but also to engage these students and get them to learn something. Gruwell worked in a racially diverse urban environment where she was the minority as a white woman and got her students to think beyond racial and gang violence. She changed their lives in an inspiring way.
Frankly, as I read the book, I found it hard to connect with her story and THAT is what actually bugs me. I kept thinking, "How did she have a life outside of school?" Answer: she probably didn't. "Could I be so dedicated to my students as to take another job (on top of all of the grading, planning, and researching I do for school) to pay for the extra stuff she did for her students?" Answer: I'd lose my bloody mind.
It was too much for me. I admire her and the work she did, but she seemed too perfect to be real. As much as I love my kids and want them to succeed, I'm not staying at school until 11 o'clock every night to individually tutor them. By the way: she no longer teaches high school at all. No wonder she burned out after that kind of effort. She teaches at a university, according to the Freedom Writers Foundation website and the afterward of the book. So after only 4 years in a high school classroom, she now teaches others to do what she did. I don't think I like that.
Maybe I've just lost the fresh-faced idealism of a brand-new teacher. Maybe I'm just cranky. I don't know. Maybe it's the fact that I'm about to teach this book to a bunch of white kids who live in suburbia whose only knowledge of gangs, life in the projects, or urban poverty comes from the movies. Again with the question of how to make a text connect to my students' lives.
I almost feel guilty for giving this book two stars instead of five. I mean, it's an inspiring story, so it should have blown my mind, right?
The book is made up of students' diary entries, so from the get-go the reader has to know that this is not professional writing. It shows. At times, the repetition of topics started to actually irritate me. It took me far longer to read this book than it probably should have, simply because I kept getting bored with it. How's that going to inspire my special needs sophomore English class?
I've heard that some people have problems with the language and some of the content of the stories (sex, drugs, gangs, etc.). Frankly, I had no problem there. These are diary entries. Honesty is to be expected, and real life today (or in the '90s) is not an episode of The Brady Bunch. Where I had a problem was in the endless repetition of the kids saying the exact same things, telling the same stories, with little variation in voice or tone.
It IS an inspiring story. I have to give it that. These kids dealt with a lot, overcame a lot, and seem to have become better people for it. Frankly, I remember the classes I had to teach my first year, and the juvenile delinquents (in some cases this was real truth) in those classes. I wracked my brain daily, as Gruwell did, coming up with ways to not only keep them from tying me to my lectern, but also to engage these students and get them to learn something. Gruwell worked in a racially diverse urban environment where she was the minority as a white woman and got her students to think beyond racial and gang violence. She changed their lives in an inspiring way.
Frankly, as I read the book, I found it hard to connect with her story and THAT is what actually bugs me. I kept thinking, "How did she have a life outside of school?" Answer: she probably didn't. "Could I be so dedicated to my students as to take another job (on top of all of the grading, planning, and researching I do for school) to pay for the extra stuff she did for her students?" Answer: I'd lose my bloody mind.
It was too much for me. I admire her and the work she did, but she seemed too perfect to be real. As much as I love my kids and want them to succeed, I'm not staying at school until 11 o'clock every night to individually tutor them. By the way: she no longer teaches high school at all. No wonder she burned out after that kind of effort. She teaches at a university, according to the Freedom Writers Foundation website and the afterward of the book. So after only 4 years in a high school classroom, she now teaches others to do what she did. I don't think I like that.
Maybe I've just lost the fresh-faced idealism of a brand-new teacher. Maybe I'm just cranky. I don't know. Maybe it's the fact that I'm about to teach this book to a bunch of white kids who live in suburbia whose only knowledge of gangs, life in the projects, or urban poverty comes from the movies. Again with the question of how to make a text connect to my students' lives.
April 28, 2013
An interesting but ultimately unrealistic story of a high school teacher in an urban school in CA who does amazing things with her students. The unrealistic parts - first, the students write diary entries - what I missed immediately were student's voices. With one or two exceptions, they could have all been written by the same student - the stories were different of course (fresh, sad, poignant, brutally honest) dealing with everything from molestation to drugs to violence - but the sentence structure and diction had all been sanitized by too much editing. I would have preferred to see their original writing. Teaching voice is difficult - but it can happen - Each student's voice, like a fingerprint, is extremely unique, represented by punctuation marks, word choice, sentence variety. In addition, some of the entries become redundant.
I've been teaching for 25 years now and been involved with three different schools/union. Happily, none of my unions were anything like Gruwell's. There is also not a lot about how she originally caught students - classroom management is not discussed but extremely important, so if you are a novice teacher looking for ideas, I suggest "Teach Like a Champion" instead.
Finally, Gruwell left teaching after about four years. If you want to stay in teaching for the long run, there has to be clear boundaries between school and personal life to stay balanced and healthy. Gruwell did not have that and I wonder if that is one of the reasons she left teaching.
I've been teaching for 25 years now and been involved with three different schools/union. Happily, none of my unions were anything like Gruwell's. There is also not a lot about how she originally caught students - classroom management is not discussed but extremely important, so if you are a novice teacher looking for ideas, I suggest "Teach Like a Champion" instead.
Finally, Gruwell left teaching after about four years. If you want to stay in teaching for the long run, there has to be clear boundaries between school and personal life to stay balanced and healthy. Gruwell did not have that and I wonder if that is one of the reasons she left teaching.
January 18, 2016
This feels like a difficult book to rate fairly. You can either rate the story (as many reviewers did) or rate the book.
I am choosing to rate the book, as this is Good Reads, after all, not Inspirational Moments. With that in mind, the book gets three stars. There were a lot of great moments (and the story is very inspirational) but the middle of the book seemed to drag. It felt longer than 280 pages, to be honest. In order to protect the identity of the students, the diary entries were marked only by number. While I understand the reasoning behind that, it made it difficult to connect with the students because you simply didn't know who was writing each passage, especially as the kids moved from year to year. They could have been identified as "Writer 1, Writer 2" etc. so the reader would at least be able to see how Writer 1 changed throughout the course of high school.
A few reviewers complained that the students' voices didn't sound "genuine," i.e. the diary entries should have been published in street vernacular. Another complained that the diary was highly edited by Erin Gruwell. I have a couple of problems with these complaints-- first, the forward to the book and certain diary entries discussed that the students themselves edited the entries to compile the book. Secondly, if the entries were published to sound "authentic", there would have been more complaints that we, the readers, are supposed to believe that the students had changed, but look, here they are, still sounding like thugs from the barrio. I think the decision to clean up the entries was made to present the students in the best possible light and I support that.
I think I should at least touch upon the inspirational aspects of the book. If I could put aside the structural problems with the book and rate only on inspiration, the book is a definite 4-5 stars.
The majority of the low ratings on GR are from other teachers who frankly have a problem with Erin Gruwell and thus rate the book on that basis. I find that very unfair. There is a mindset that is too often prevalent in public schools that only the "educators" know what's going on and we, as parents, must simply defer to their greater knowledge. In Ms. Gruwell's case, the complaints are that "she was only a teacher for four years..." "how dare she assume that she knows more about teaching than me," etc.
Erin related the story of the starfish at the end of the book (putting one starfish back in the sea changed the life of that starfish). She changed the lives of 150 starfish. It is inspirational and to think otherwise is being petty.
I am choosing to rate the book, as this is Good Reads, after all, not Inspirational Moments. With that in mind, the book gets three stars. There were a lot of great moments (and the story is very inspirational) but the middle of the book seemed to drag. It felt longer than 280 pages, to be honest. In order to protect the identity of the students, the diary entries were marked only by number. While I understand the reasoning behind that, it made it difficult to connect with the students because you simply didn't know who was writing each passage, especially as the kids moved from year to year. They could have been identified as "Writer 1, Writer 2" etc. so the reader would at least be able to see how Writer 1 changed throughout the course of high school.
A few reviewers complained that the students' voices didn't sound "genuine," i.e. the diary entries should have been published in street vernacular. Another complained that the diary was highly edited by Erin Gruwell. I have a couple of problems with these complaints-- first, the forward to the book and certain diary entries discussed that the students themselves edited the entries to compile the book. Secondly, if the entries were published to sound "authentic", there would have been more complaints that we, the readers, are supposed to believe that the students had changed, but look, here they are, still sounding like thugs from the barrio. I think the decision to clean up the entries was made to present the students in the best possible light and I support that.
I think I should at least touch upon the inspirational aspects of the book. If I could put aside the structural problems with the book and rate only on inspiration, the book is a definite 4-5 stars.
The majority of the low ratings on GR are from other teachers who frankly have a problem with Erin Gruwell and thus rate the book on that basis. I find that very unfair. There is a mindset that is too often prevalent in public schools that only the "educators" know what's going on and we, as parents, must simply defer to their greater knowledge. In Ms. Gruwell's case, the complaints are that "she was only a teacher for four years..." "how dare she assume that she knows more about teaching than me," etc.
Erin related the story of the starfish at the end of the book (putting one starfish back in the sea changed the life of that starfish). She changed the lives of 150 starfish. It is inspirational and to think otherwise is being petty.
June 13, 2019
Let me start by saying I only picked up this book after I watched the movie and heard they wrote a book. I must say I did not really enjoy the book there was 142 diaries and there was 150 students, they only pick out one diaries entry per person so I really feel like I did not get the story I wanted. There was some story's that I really enjoyed and wish to have read more about,and there was a lot that I did not care for. The way it was written was smart they made one diary picked up where the others left off so you got to see not just one point of view. I think the movie was better because it held more emotion then the book did. No matter what this class of room 203 made it and made a difference the teacher was amazing so happy they had her in their life. I would recommend this book to students for learning something, but as just reading for fun ehh! not so much just watch the movie. If you like true stories then yes this is a book for you.
February 8, 2013
If you would like to read a book written by a 20-something woman impersonating her students, using her best attempt at teenage, inner-city vernacular, then this is the book for you. No teenager I know writes like the supposed diary entries in this book. And, just to be clear, I know many talented writers, but the entries reflect the voice/style of someone who wants to sound like a angst-filled teenager rather than the real thing. Conveniently, the entries are all anonymous, so there is no way to fact-check and be sure that her students really did compose this book. This wouldn't be such a big deal except that the book depends on this premise to be true for the heart-warming message to work. Otherwise, it's just a shameful sham.
August 4, 2008
I had to read this after having seen an essay in Newsweek. We former teachers always want to to hear those great success stories and this is certainly one of them! My only wish is that the rest of the wonderfully creative and committed teachers out there were recognized like this one...the book itself was good. I found it a bit redundant. Worthwhile but I think you'll skip ahead after awhile. I don't want to take anything away from it...buy it, read it, pass it on, support them, give every hardworking, "out of the box" teacher support and encouragement...THIS COUNTRY NEEDS THEM!!!
May 9, 2021
I never read enough nonfiction books with my students and the freedom writers diary seemed a perfect fit for my Secondary 3( grade 9) students. We watched the film adaptation, read some interesting articles and watched some TEDtalks about the real Erin Gruwell and her students. Yes, we also did journal writing and activities from the teacher's guide. Not to mention plenty of discussions. Our final work begins tomorrow.
Goodreads review published 09/05/21
Goodreads review published 09/05/21
September 14, 2021
I'm not going to read other reviews before my own...but...how can you give less than 5 stars to a diary of children that have poured out their life and shown their progress? I watched the movie a long while ago and decided to actually read the words chosen to be shared and was humbled and inspired, as hopefully anyone else would be reading this. I am very excited to read the new Freedom Writers book discussing their adult lives coming out Feb 2022.
August 11, 2013
1. I decided to read this book after watching the movie that the book inspired in class. I really enjoyed watching this movie, and thought that perhaps the book could be even better than the movie.
However, after finishing the book, I definitely prefer the movie. This is because I found parts of the book quite dull, repetitive, and I also found the writing style very simple and basic (although this is probably because it was written by a group of teenagers). Even if the writing itself wasn't very good, I found the story very inspirational, because it shows how anyone can change if they are determined.
2. This book fits the category: A book that has been made into a movie.
3. The most interesting character in this book was probably Erin Gruwell. This is because of her different and unique approach to teaching, her determination and her belief in her students that everyone else had given up on. Even though her students were unwilling to learn, mean to her and mean to others, she persevered and transformed the students into successful people who are positive and an inspiration to others. She changed room 203 from a hostile environment into a home, her class into a family, a group of troubled teenagers into the Freedom Writers.
4. “Don't let the actions of a few determine the way you feel about an entire group. Remember, not all German's were Nazis." This is one of my favourite quotes from this book because I feel that this is a very true statement that applies to many different groups. I have hated entire groups of people, religions, and even countries in the past due to a few individuals, and many other people do this as well. I think that our world could benefit so much from realising this. Our world would be a much better place if we stopped judging a group of people by what a few did.
5. From this book, I have learnt that anybody can change. Even if you are a gang member living in 'the hood', you can still turn your life around. All it takes is hard work and determination.
However, after finishing the book, I definitely prefer the movie. This is because I found parts of the book quite dull, repetitive, and I also found the writing style very simple and basic (although this is probably because it was written by a group of teenagers). Even if the writing itself wasn't very good, I found the story very inspirational, because it shows how anyone can change if they are determined.
2. This book fits the category: A book that has been made into a movie.
3. The most interesting character in this book was probably Erin Gruwell. This is because of her different and unique approach to teaching, her determination and her belief in her students that everyone else had given up on. Even though her students were unwilling to learn, mean to her and mean to others, she persevered and transformed the students into successful people who are positive and an inspiration to others. She changed room 203 from a hostile environment into a home, her class into a family, a group of troubled teenagers into the Freedom Writers.
4. “Don't let the actions of a few determine the way you feel about an entire group. Remember, not all German's were Nazis." This is one of my favourite quotes from this book because I feel that this is a very true statement that applies to many different groups. I have hated entire groups of people, religions, and even countries in the past due to a few individuals, and many other people do this as well. I think that our world could benefit so much from realising this. Our world would be a much better place if we stopped judging a group of people by what a few did.
5. From this book, I have learnt that anybody can change. Even if you are a gang member living in 'the hood', you can still turn your life around. All it takes is hard work and determination.
February 5, 2021
“Silence ensures that history repeats itself.”
Erin Gruwell didn't picture anything close to what she had found at her first days of school as a freshman English teacher in Wilson high-school. people being killed on the streets in broad daylight or night is a regular thing. students might get involved too, who has a very little or no respect for the educational system. Long beach was a place where people see color before anything else.
“Society just doesn't care about young people anymore, even if we are the future.”
She did everything so courageously to the point where her students can get over the intolerance, hatred and violence they were in, living with it everyday. The world gave her the most unstable class she had, and she gave us back freedom writers with this book. If only there're more teachers like her. I like how the transformation happens through reading and at the end they gave us a book to read. Isn't that just great?
“I always say that the young people are the future of the world, and if we start with them first, if we educate and develop a sense of tolerance among them, our future, the future of this world, will be in good hands for generations to come.”
Even it costs her marriage, she didn't only change her students life, they also changed her. And both the rest of the world with this unforgettable and uplifting collection of their diaries. Giving hope for a generation who used to posses none, growing above stereotypes, this is one what we need most in every part of the world.
Erin Gruwell didn't picture anything close to what she had found at her first days of school as a freshman English teacher in Wilson high-school. people being killed on the streets in broad daylight or night is a regular thing. students might get involved too, who has a very little or no respect for the educational system. Long beach was a place where people see color before anything else.
“Society just doesn't care about young people anymore, even if we are the future.”
She did everything so courageously to the point where her students can get over the intolerance, hatred and violence they were in, living with it everyday. The world gave her the most unstable class she had, and she gave us back freedom writers with this book. If only there're more teachers like her. I like how the transformation happens through reading and at the end they gave us a book to read. Isn't that just great?
“I always say that the young people are the future of the world, and if we start with them first, if we educate and develop a sense of tolerance among them, our future, the future of this world, will be in good hands for generations to come.”
Even it costs her marriage, she didn't only change her students life, they also changed her. And both the rest of the world with this unforgettable and uplifting collection of their diaries. Giving hope for a generation who used to posses none, growing above stereotypes, this is one what we need most in every part of the world.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 31, 2021
Yikes! Such a powerful and emotional read. I remember having to watch the film for my english class in 10th grade. Finally, years later, I was able to read the diaries. I rate "The Freedom Writers Diary" 5 stars.
August 17, 2017
Read it !!! One of my favorite books of all times from just reading the first page ❤️❤️❤️❤️
April 10, 2025
This is going to be an extremely biased review. I am acknowledging that, and I don't give a hoot.
THIS BOOK MADE ME FEEL SO BURNED OUT. This book is so toxic. I have been a public school teacher for 11 years, and this book does so much harm to future and current educators.
NO TEACHER should get a second job just so they can buy things for their students and take them on field trips.
NO TEACHER should think about their students or get them souvenirs while on vacation.
NO TEACHER should have to view their profession as more than a job.
Books like this are a big reason why teachers are held to impossible standards. Teaching is a profession, but that does not mean that teaching should be an all-consuming lifestyle.
I am a GREAT teacher (not to toot my own horn), but I refuse to feel guilty for leaving my teacher self in the classroom and having a life of my own. I care about my students and their success in the classroom, but I am a person as well. I can only be a good teacher for my students if I have a healthy work-life balance.
It's nice that this teacher was able to reach out to so many struggling students, but not all stories are like that. I worked in a Title 1 high school school for 6 years. I understand the struggle.
Teachers are already viewed negatively by so many people. This book makes it seem like a teacher isn't good enough if they aren't making their entire life about their students. THAT IS SO TOXIC. Good teachers already think they aren't doing enough, SO THANKS FOR THAT, ERIN.
ALSO ALSO ALSO, it KILLS ME that Erin Gruwell was only a public school teacher for 4 years. LIKE WHAT??? Try being in the trenches for over a decade AND during post-COVID era. Let me know how that goes.
THIS BOOK MADE ME FEEL SO BURNED OUT. This book is so toxic. I have been a public school teacher for 11 years, and this book does so much harm to future and current educators.
NO TEACHER should get a second job just so they can buy things for their students and take them on field trips.
NO TEACHER should think about their students or get them souvenirs while on vacation.
NO TEACHER should have to view their profession as more than a job.
Books like this are a big reason why teachers are held to impossible standards. Teaching is a profession, but that does not mean that teaching should be an all-consuming lifestyle.
I am a GREAT teacher (not to toot my own horn), but I refuse to feel guilty for leaving my teacher self in the classroom and having a life of my own. I care about my students and their success in the classroom, but I am a person as well. I can only be a good teacher for my students if I have a healthy work-life balance.
It's nice that this teacher was able to reach out to so many struggling students, but not all stories are like that. I worked in a Title 1 high school school for 6 years. I understand the struggle.
Teachers are already viewed negatively by so many people. This book makes it seem like a teacher isn't good enough if they aren't making their entire life about their students. THAT IS SO TOXIC. Good teachers already think they aren't doing enough, SO THANKS FOR THAT, ERIN.
ALSO ALSO ALSO, it KILLS ME that Erin Gruwell was only a public school teacher for 4 years. LIKE WHAT??? Try being in the trenches for over a decade AND during post-COVID era. Let me know how that goes.
April 3, 2011
I first heard of this book in Sheila's blog when she reviewed this during the Banned Books week last year. At that point, I wasn't too keen on reading the book, but when I saw the movie pop up in my Netflix recommendations list, I decided to check it out. I didn't have too many expectations from it, but by the end of the movie, I loved it. Who doesn't love a rebel? And I mean a good rebel -- someone who succeeds in something when everyone else expected him/her to fail. The movie was everything about changing your destiny, and all through my life, I've never tolerated the 'fate' and 'destiny' philosophies that anyone dished out to me. I like to believe that I'm the only person who can control my life -- of course there's the butterfly effect and then there is the case where someone else's actions can affect what happens to you, but they are usually single events, and most times, one can always decide one's reactions to such events. Would you rather wallow in depression because you are going through a life-changing mess or would you rather change the way you respond to that mess?
The Freedom Writers' Diary is the strongest proof I've seen about how you can make a difference to your life and to those around you. All the kids in Erin Gruwell's class have already been written off as failures, by other teachers, other students, and even their own parents. Worse, none of the kids could identify with Erin -- a white woman staying in a safe suburban residence, with no teaching experience and who had no idea of life in the violent gang-controlled streets of LA. Since even their previous teachers had given up on them, they gave Erin just a month before they believed she would move on.
The following 300-odd pages of this book shows so well how every single student has been transformed by Erin's teaching methods, the students' life experiences, their choices and willingness to perhaps hope that maybe they'll come through it all fine. So many stories in the book are moving. There's the student who's the sole caretaker of the family and is on the verge of eviction because he/she has to pay 800 bucks in rent and the car payment is also due. Then the girl who had a really wonderful family life at one point and within a few years, the mother left, the father remarried to a woman she and her siblings couldn't adjust to; soon they moved to an aunt's place who loved her a lot until her lover returned from the jail and the kids were back to square one -- homeless and family-less. There's the boy whose family doesn't have a home to stay in because they are so poor. There's the girl whose parents stole her stuff so that they can fund their drug addiction. There's also the girl who had to bring herself up because her mother was tired of being a mother. There's the boy whose father doesn't think his son will succeed and offers no hope or encouragement.
So many of the diary entries make you really sad, but by the end of each entry, I still smiled because the kids weren't writing with despair, they were writing with hope. They made promises to themselves and expressed their gratitude that they at least still had the Freedom Writers. Erin Gruwell and her class were a symbol of hope for all these kids. It's beautiful reading about how these kids change and how they do and wish good for others too. Their hostility is very evident in the initial diary entries, but as I read, I could vividly see the changes happening. It's also a reminder that just because a kid walks around with a gun or a knife, it doesn't mean that they are bad. It means they need help and there are no adults offering them that.
I've never had a teacher like Erin Gruwell, but then I've never been in a challenged class like Erin's. Still, every school needs someone like her -- if not to help those 'written-off' kids, then to at least empathize with the kids in their class. All kids have problems -- maybe not as tragic as the circumstances of the kids in this book, but certainly important problems that can have far-reaching consequences later on in life.
I loved both the movie and the book -- both are remarkably similar in plotline, but the book is just a bunch of numbered diary entries (you never know the identity of most kids and that lends a poignant innocent feel to the book). In the movie, there are some characters that are more central to the storyline. I loved all the actors who portrayed the students. They really got well into the skin of their characters. The movie also gives a personal look into Erin's life, which is not present in the book. As I understand it, the movie also used Erin's memoir to put together the various threads. I will recommend both the movie and the book to you -- they are both well-done. If like me, you aren't feeling motivated to read the book, you should certainly watch the movie then. I promise that you'll be checking out the book the very next day.
The Freedom Writers' Diary is the strongest proof I've seen about how you can make a difference to your life and to those around you. All the kids in Erin Gruwell's class have already been written off as failures, by other teachers, other students, and even their own parents. Worse, none of the kids could identify with Erin -- a white woman staying in a safe suburban residence, with no teaching experience and who had no idea of life in the violent gang-controlled streets of LA. Since even their previous teachers had given up on them, they gave Erin just a month before they believed she would move on.
The following 300-odd pages of this book shows so well how every single student has been transformed by Erin's teaching methods, the students' life experiences, their choices and willingness to perhaps hope that maybe they'll come through it all fine. So many stories in the book are moving. There's the student who's the sole caretaker of the family and is on the verge of eviction because he/she has to pay 800 bucks in rent and the car payment is also due. Then the girl who had a really wonderful family life at one point and within a few years, the mother left, the father remarried to a woman she and her siblings couldn't adjust to; soon they moved to an aunt's place who loved her a lot until her lover returned from the jail and the kids were back to square one -- homeless and family-less. There's the boy whose family doesn't have a home to stay in because they are so poor. There's the girl whose parents stole her stuff so that they can fund their drug addiction. There's also the girl who had to bring herself up because her mother was tired of being a mother. There's the boy whose father doesn't think his son will succeed and offers no hope or encouragement.
So many of the diary entries make you really sad, but by the end of each entry, I still smiled because the kids weren't writing with despair, they were writing with hope. They made promises to themselves and expressed their gratitude that they at least still had the Freedom Writers. Erin Gruwell and her class were a symbol of hope for all these kids. It's beautiful reading about how these kids change and how they do and wish good for others too. Their hostility is very evident in the initial diary entries, but as I read, I could vividly see the changes happening. It's also a reminder that just because a kid walks around with a gun or a knife, it doesn't mean that they are bad. It means they need help and there are no adults offering them that.
I've never had a teacher like Erin Gruwell, but then I've never been in a challenged class like Erin's. Still, every school needs someone like her -- if not to help those 'written-off' kids, then to at least empathize with the kids in their class. All kids have problems -- maybe not as tragic as the circumstances of the kids in this book, but certainly important problems that can have far-reaching consequences later on in life.
If four years ago someone would have told me that Ms. G was going to last more than a month, I would have laughed straight in their face. She wasn't supposed to make it, we weren't supposed to make it. But look at us now, the sure-to-drop-out kids are sure to reach higher education. No one would have thought of the "bad-asses" as high school graduates -- as any kind of graduates. Yet, in four years we will be college graduates. Our names will be on the alumni lists of Columbia, Princeton, Stanford, and even Harvard.
I loved both the movie and the book -- both are remarkably similar in plotline, but the book is just a bunch of numbered diary entries (you never know the identity of most kids and that lends a poignant innocent feel to the book). In the movie, there are some characters that are more central to the storyline. I loved all the actors who portrayed the students. They really got well into the skin of their characters. The movie also gives a personal look into Erin's life, which is not present in the book. As I understand it, the movie also used Erin's memoir to put together the various threads. I will recommend both the movie and the book to you -- they are both well-done. If like me, you aren't feeling motivated to read the book, you should certainly watch the movie then. I promise that you'll be checking out the book the very next day.
April 19, 2024
This was a good depiction of why I am a teacher! It's a good reminder that people are people, they're human beings, no matter their status, color, education, or family.
I watched as student after student fought the system, and broke free from the cultural chains that bound them.
There weren't always happy endings and haters are gonna' hate, but what a beautiful testimonial this was of how 1 person's belief in someone can change their whole world.
I watched as student after student fought the system, and broke free from the cultural chains that bound them.
There weren't always happy endings and haters are gonna' hate, but what a beautiful testimonial this was of how 1 person's belief in someone can change their whole world.
December 18, 2021
Gripping and powerful. I kept meaning to put this book down and take a break from the heavy content, but I was constantly pulled into the next diary entry, the next semester, the next decade. I highly recommend the tales of the Freedom Writers, their journey, to anyone to read, whether or not you think you could possibly relate. They all came from adversary in one form or another and pulled through to different types of successful life after high school graduation, atypical for the "type" of students Erin Gruwell was given. Very inspiring stories from wonderful individuals.
Edit: Mature content in the book includes - foul language, drug use, gang violence, and rape.
Edit: Mature content in the book includes - foul language, drug use, gang violence, and rape.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 22, 2022
From IMDb:
A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves and pursue education beyond high school.
A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves and pursue education beyond high school.
June 21, 2022
Brilliant & very inspiring! Loved it 😍
August 11, 2024
So many impactful stories. So many tears. So much love.
December 29, 2022
I watched the movie before reading the book and I must say both are excellent. It is an inspiring story still after all these years.
March 6, 2017
Alternate title that was rejected for this book: "Heroic Young White Woman Rescues Dozens of Minority Youth from Prejudice"
It could have been good. The concept is interesting - teenagers in LA are inspired to keep diaries like Anne Frank and Zlata Filipović, because for them, their violent neighborhoods are basically a war zone. Their entries are filled with revelations about how much they have in common with people like Anne and Zlata- truly important experiences, like watching a friend die, or running from gunshots - things that run much deeper than skin color, language, or other superficial markers of culture.
But the structure of the book suffers greatly from a few things. First, I understand why the authors remained anonymous, but the book does not even distinguish different authors. Each entry is assigned a number. So it's just a mass of teenagers spilling words on a page about growing up. There is no character, no plot, no story, no growth.
Apparently at some point the students took some kind of oath to change or tolerance. A few mentioned it in passing. What exactly they promised is never explained. Several entries mention this rich guy, who I guess financially supported some of their activities and field trips. I can only guess because this was also never explained.
How did all these students come to trust their teacher enough to write such deeply personal stories in their composition books? Never explained. I mean clearly it happened but without showing us how, it's basically a non-story.
And without identifying which entries were written by which students, there is no growth. One entry is about a student feeling afraid of the violence in their neighborhood and getting a gun for protection. Later, in another entry a student talks about walking away from the violence in his neighborhood and wishing his friends had done so before their deaths. Were these written by the same student? No idea. Maybe. Maybe not. They could still remain anonymous. Student A, Student B, give them psuedonyms, whatever, but without that continuity, we are again left with a non-story.
Despite the supposed premise of the project, none of these students have a voice.
Which is another thing that started to bother me. All the entries started to sound remarkably similar. The same bland voice throughout. I found myself feeling deeply skeptical that all these entries were really written by the students.
Especially with how much they gush about their teacher. She is the only one who understands them, the only white person who ever listened to them, they are all so desparate that she be proud of them, they are worried she will be disappointed in them. I started to be embarrassed for her. One student even described her as "an angel" sent by God to give her "a second chance to change my life for the better." Oy, if I had been the teacher I would have edited that OUT of the book.
All of this was making me more than a little squeamish, but I soldiered on to about the halfway point. I was reading one of the entries by the teacher. She had decided to embark on the project of compiling the students' diary entries for a book.
Then it happened.
She wrote, "This project makes me feel a certain sense of personal responsibility - resembling the commitment Miep Gies felt to the Franks."
Ho. Lee. Shit.
This fucking woman just compared herself editing a bunch of teenagers' writing assignments to risking her life to hide Jews from the Nazis.
Fuck that. Fuck everything about that. My moderate squeamishness has now erupted into full-blown disgust and anger. I am officially done with this book and would recommend it to exactly no one.
It could have been good. The concept is interesting - teenagers in LA are inspired to keep diaries like Anne Frank and Zlata Filipović, because for them, their violent neighborhoods are basically a war zone. Their entries are filled with revelations about how much they have in common with people like Anne and Zlata- truly important experiences, like watching a friend die, or running from gunshots - things that run much deeper than skin color, language, or other superficial markers of culture.
But the structure of the book suffers greatly from a few things. First, I understand why the authors remained anonymous, but the book does not even distinguish different authors. Each entry is assigned a number. So it's just a mass of teenagers spilling words on a page about growing up. There is no character, no plot, no story, no growth.
Apparently at some point the students took some kind of oath to change or tolerance. A few mentioned it in passing. What exactly they promised is never explained. Several entries mention this rich guy, who I guess financially supported some of their activities and field trips. I can only guess because this was also never explained.
How did all these students come to trust their teacher enough to write such deeply personal stories in their composition books? Never explained. I mean clearly it happened but without showing us how, it's basically a non-story.
And without identifying which entries were written by which students, there is no growth. One entry is about a student feeling afraid of the violence in their neighborhood and getting a gun for protection. Later, in another entry a student talks about walking away from the violence in his neighborhood and wishing his friends had done so before their deaths. Were these written by the same student? No idea. Maybe. Maybe not. They could still remain anonymous. Student A, Student B, give them psuedonyms, whatever, but without that continuity, we are again left with a non-story.
Despite the supposed premise of the project, none of these students have a voice.
Which is another thing that started to bother me. All the entries started to sound remarkably similar. The same bland voice throughout. I found myself feeling deeply skeptical that all these entries were really written by the students.
Especially with how much they gush about their teacher. She is the only one who understands them, the only white person who ever listened to them, they are all so desparate that she be proud of them, they are worried she will be disappointed in them. I started to be embarrassed for her. One student even described her as "an angel" sent by God to give her "a second chance to change my life for the better." Oy, if I had been the teacher I would have edited that OUT of the book.
All of this was making me more than a little squeamish, but I soldiered on to about the halfway point. I was reading one of the entries by the teacher. She had decided to embark on the project of compiling the students' diary entries for a book.
Then it happened.
She wrote, "This project makes me feel a certain sense of personal responsibility - resembling the commitment Miep Gies felt to the Franks."
Ho. Lee. Shit.
This fucking woman just compared herself editing a bunch of teenagers' writing assignments to risking her life to hide Jews from the Nazis.
Fuck that. Fuck everything about that. My moderate squeamishness has now erupted into full-blown disgust and anger. I am officially done with this book and would recommend it to exactly no one.
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