Product Description

Straight from the front line of urban America, the inspiring story of one fiercely determined teacher and her remarkable students.


As an idealistic twenty-three-year-old English teacher at Wilson High School in Long beach, California, Erin Gruwell confronted a room of “unteachable, at-risk” students. One day she intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature, and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust—only to be met by uncomprehending looks. So she and her students, using the treasured books Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo as their guides, undertook a life-changing, eye-opening, spirit-raising odyssey against intolerance and misunderstanding. They learned to see the parallels in these books to their own lives, recording their thoughts and feelings in diaries and dubbing themselves the “Freedom Writers” in homage to the civil rights activists “The Freedom Riders.”

With funds raised by a “Read-a-thon for Tolerance,” they arranged for Miep Gies, the courageous Dutch woman who sheltered the Frank family, to visit them in California, where she declared that Erin Gruwell’s students were “the real heroes.” Their efforts have paid off spectacularly, both in terms of recognition—appearances on “Prime Time Live” and “All Things Considered,” coverage in People magazine, a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley—and educationally. All 150 Freedom Writers have graduated from high school and are now attending college.

With powerful entries from the students’ own diaries and a narrative text by Erin Gruwell, The Freedom Writers Diary is an uplifting, unforgettable example of how hard work, courage, and the spirit of determination changed the lives of a teacher and her students.

The authors’ proceeds from this book will be donated to The Tolerance Education Foundation, an organization set up to pay for the Freedom Writers’ college tuition. Erin Gruwell is now a visiting professor at California State University, Long Beach, where some of her students are Freedom Writers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #522 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-12
• Released on: 1999-10-12
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Library Journal
When Gruwell was a first-year high school teacher in Long Beach, CA, teaching the "unteachables" (kids that no other teacher wanted to deal with), she discovered that most of her students had not heard of the Holocaust. Shocked, she introduced them to books about toleranceAfirst-person accounts by the likes of Anne Frank and Zlata Filopvic, who chronicled her life in war-torn Sarajevo. The students were inspired to start keeping diaries of their lives that showed the violence, homelessness, racism, illness, and abuse that surrounded them. These student diaries form the basis of this book, which is cut from the same mold as Dangerous Minds: the outsider teacher, who isn't supposed to last a month, comes in and rebuilds a class with tough love and hard work. Most readers will be proud to see how these students have succeeded; at the end of their four-year experience, the Freedom WritersAas they called themselves, in honor of the Freedom Riders of the 1960sAhad all graduated; Grunwell now works at the college level, instructing teachers on how to provide more interactive classes for their students. Recommended for youth, education, and urban studies collections.ADanna C. Bell-Russel, Lib. of Congress, Washington, DC
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Freshman Year

Fall 1994

Entry 1 -- Ms. Gruwell

Dear Diary, Tomorrow morning, my journey as an English teacher officially begins. Since first impressions are so important, I wonder what my students will think about me. Will they think I'm out of touch or too preppy? Or worse yet, that I'm too young to be taken seriously? Maybe I'll have them write a journal entry describing what their expectations are of me and the class.

Even though I spent last year as a student teacher at Wilson High School, I'm still learning my way around the city. Long Beach is so different than the gated community I grew up in. Thanks to MTV dubbing Long Beach as the "gangsta-rap capital" with its depiction of guns and graffiti, my friends have a warped perception of the city, or L B C as the rappers refer to it. They think I should wear a bulletproof vest rather than pearls. Where I live in Newport Beach is a utopia compared to some of neighborhoods seen in a Snoop Doggy Dogg video. Still, TV tends to blow things out of proportion.

The school is actually located in a safe neighborhood, just a few miles from the ocean. Its location and reputation make it desirable. So much so that a lot of the students that live in what they call the "'hood" take two or three buses just to get to school every day. Students come in from every corner of the city: Rich kids from the shore sit next to poor kids from the projects . . . there's every race, religion, and culture within the confines of the quad. But since the Rodney King riots, racial tension has spilled over into the school.

Due to busing and an outbreak in gang activity, Wilson's traditional white, upper-class demographics have changed radically. African Americans, Latinos, and Asians now make up the majority of the student body.

As a student teacher last year, I was pretty naive. I wanted to see past color and culture, but I was immediately confronted by it when the first bell rang and a student named Sharaud sauntered in bouncing a basketball. He was a junior, a disciplinary transfer from Wilson's crosstown rival, and his reputation preceded him. Word was that he had threatened his previous English teacher with a gun (which I later found out was only a plastic water gun, but it had all the makings of a dramatic showdown). In those first few minutes, he made it brutally clear that he hated Wilson, he hated English, and he hated me. His sole purpose was to make his "preppy" student teacher cry. Little did he know that within a month, he'd be the one crying.

Sharaud became the butt of a bad joke. A classmate got tired of Sharaud's antics and drew a racial caricature of him with huge, exaggerated lips. As the drawing made its way around the class, the other students laughed hysterically. When Sharaud saw it, he looked as if he was going to cry. For the first time, his tough facade began to crack.

When I got a hold of the picture, I went ballistic. "This is the type of propaganda that the Nazis used during the Holocaust," I yelled. When a student timidly asked me, "What's the Holocaust?" I was shocked.

I asked, "How many of you have heard of the Holocaust?" Not a single person raised his hand. Then I asked, "How many of you have been shot at?" Nearly every hand went up.

I immediately decided to throw out my meticulously planned lessons and make tolerance the core of my curriculum.

From that moment on, I would try to bring history to life by using new books, inviting guest speakers, and going on field trips. Since I was just a student teacher, I had no budget for my schemes. So, I moonlighted as a concierge at the Marriott Hotel and sold lingerie at Nordstrom. My dad even asked me, "Why can't you just be a normal teacher?"

Actually, normalcy didn't seem so bad after my first snafu. I took my students to see Schindler's List in Newport Beach, at a predominately white, upper-class theater. I was shocked to see women grab their pearls and clutch their purses in fear. A local paper ran a front-page article about the incident, describing how poorly my students were treated, after which I received death threats. One of my disgruntled neighbors had the audacity to say, "If you love black people so much, why don't you just marry a monkey?"

All this drama and I didn't even have my teaching credentials yet. Luckily, some of my professors from University of California-Irvine read the article and invited my class to a seminar by the author of Schindler's List, Thomas Keneally. Keneally was so impressed by my students that a few days later we got an invitation to meet Steven Spielberg at Universal Studios. I couldn't believe it! The famous director wanted to meet the class that I had dubbed "as colorful as a box of Crayola crayons" and their "rookie teacher who was causing waves." He marveled at how far these "unteachable" students had come as a junior class and what a close group they had become. He even asked Sharaud what "we" were planning to do next year as an encore. After all, if a film does well, you make a sequel--if a class surpasses everyone's expectations, you . . .

. . . dismantle it! Yep, that's exactly what happened. Upon my return from Universal, the head of the English department told me, "You're making us look bad." Talk about bursting my bubble! How was I making them look bad? After all, these were the same kids that "wouldn't last a month" or "were too stupid" to read advanced placement books.

She went on to say, "Things are based on seniority around here." So, in other words, I was lucky to have a job, and keeping Sharaud and his posse another year would be pushing the envelope. Instead, I'd be teaching freshmen--"at risk" freshmen. Hmm . . . not exactly the assignment I was hoping for.

So, starting tomorrow, it's back to the drawing board. But I'm convinced that if Sharaud could change, then anyone can. So basically, I should prepare myself for a roomful of Sharauds. If it took a month to win Sharaud over . . . I wonder how long it's gonna take a bunch of feisty fourteen-year-olds to come around?

Customer Reviews

The Freedom Writer's Diary
I agree that this book was written retrospectively because I was confused by Ms. Gruwell's introduction myself. I read it more than once because I was sure I had missed something. She clearly wrote it beyond the original point she claims to have written it.

After reading only two of the first "Diary" entries I had to stop and check through the book to see who was responsible for adapting because to me the editing felt like over kill and took away from the natural flow of what were most likely compelling narrations at some point. To me it felt unnatural and contrived -- yes the stories were heart breaking, but I felt like I was getting the stories through the eyes of say a Diane Sawyer or a Lisa Ling report instead of through the eyes of the 14 old CHILDREN that had been through it.

Being a writer means finding your own voice. A big red flag went up for me when all of the entries were written in the same exact voice. The beginning entries were supposed to be private thoughts of FRESHMEN remedial students, but in no way was that reflected in the entries. You would be hard pressed to find a COLLEGE freshman these days with the vocabulary required for the entries.

Even if the student hadn't been remedial students the writing was so unbelievable! There is no way to convince me that any freshman in any academic level would chose the words and expressions to describe thier personal lives that were used in the entries. The editing did a huge disservice to the kids.

Through out the entire book, I found myself mumbling, "Yeah, right" and "What kid talks like this?" under my breath.

Of course we all picked up the book out of curiosity and admiration, but lets face it-- we also wondered about the authenticity. That is what hooks the reader from the start, draws you in and keeps you engaged. That is what shines more light on the cause.

To those of you who will figure this in bias to "inner city kids" save your breath because I was one. Also, I wanted to identify with the kids, but oddly enough, even though the subject matter is real and gritty, it feels forced and I dare say flowery. It seems they left in the four letter words for shock value, but took out the rawness, which as a reader I am much more interested in.

Although I was a little disappointed by writing style; I applaud and support the students and Ms. Gruwell and will continue to follow news about the Freedom Writer's Organization, but I must admit I was very much looking forward to settling in for an captivating read and I feel let down.

I also have a very difficult time believing that the projects the students discussed in their entries took place all in one school year let alone in one semester. You figure each class is less than an hour long there simply isn't enough time in a curriculum for it to hold true.

(Also, the movie is supposed to be an honest depiction of the book and there were entries that somewhat resembled some of the journal entries that were read aloud to narrate the movie, but the outcomes of the entries in the movie were completely different than ones in the book. So which is true the harsher stories read in the movie or the moralistic entries from the book?)

Freedom Writers Diary
After seeing to movie and feeling moved to learn more about this group of writers, I purchased this book. As with the movie, there are some harsh realities brought to light, but it's a good read. Having grown up in a relatively easy-going community in very white America, I felt it was a good experience to see that things are not so easy for MANY kids. Now that I'm raising my own kids I feel it's important for them, also to gain a bit of perspective. This is really an important piece of literature...thanks to those who brought it to the public.

Freedom Writers Diary
This book, the freedom writers diary, is one not to forget. Throughout the book they mention what they call the 'undeclared war', this is supposed to describe the gang violence and discrimination of Long Beach, CA. This book is wonderful and inspiring novel that will hit you emotionally. It is a definite page-turner