The Freedom Writers

These past days I watched this movie based on a true story. It was very moving and I thought it deserved a special post. After watching it I went straight to look for more information on Internet and I found that this true story turned into a book (1999), then into a Foundation and in 2007 into a movie, played by Hilary Swank. This is the story I'm talking about: Based on actual diary accounts of several teenagers FREEDOM WRITERS is the story of an idealistic teacher’s attempts to make a difference in the lives of her at-risk students. Located in Long Beach, California, Woodrow Wilson High is a hotbed of violence due to a voluntary integration program which brings Black, Latino, Asian, and White students together. Rather than having the desired effect of creating healthy diversity, this program breeds constant war between all parties involved, the result being daily gun shots, constant racial slurs, and gang violence.

Assigned the task of teaching freshman English the 23-year-old teacher resorts to unconventional means of breaking through to her hardened students. Her students had been written off, and her chances of succeeding scoffed at, but Erin Gruwell wasn't about to go down without a fight. Long Beach is a place where a new war is waged with each passing day, and when the hardened students who walk those dangerous hallways sense an outsider attempting to understand their plight, their cynical resentment threatens to keep a deadly cycle in motion. Despite the initially hostile reaction she receives in the classroom, Gruwell uses the writings of Anne Frank and -Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo to teach her students not only the basis of the English language, but compassion and tolerance as well. Later, when the time comes to tell their own tales in a project specially designed to explore the daily violence that the majority of students have grown numb to, the barriers that had once stood so strong gradually begin to crumble. "Freedom Writers" is an inspirational tale and testimony to courage, hope and the human spirit's triumph over intolerance. As the students' diaries transform from schoolwork into life preservers, Gruwell's commitment to them grows and affects her in ways she did not imagine.