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Summary: This book should be in every high schools curriuclum!
Review: The Freedom Writers Diary is a book about a teacher that made a huge difference in her students life. She has students write journal entries throughout the years and compiles them and makes a book. This book is a great book for anyone to read because it lets people look into the lives of under privileged children and the pain they go through. This book is a book that shows people how just because people are stereotyped into not becoming the best they can, doesn't mean they won't make a difference. Everyone in this world has something to offer. I think that this should be a mandatory book for high school students to read. I would rather read this book before I would want to read To Kill a Mockinbird or Pudd'in Head Wilson. This book has a lot more that teenagers can relate to or can understand.
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Summary: Important reading
Review: The Freedom writers give you a window into what it is like to live in gangland. We feel hopeful that these kids have made a great step towards breaking the cycle of violence and despair. The theme of the book is tolerance and it is very well put forth here. Recommended reading
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Summary: students speak out
Review: The new English teacher was assigned to the students most likely to fail. This book is filled with journal entries from the students and the teacher, giving us glimpses into their personal journey and the journey of the class as a whole. This book isn't about how a teacher saved her students. It won't reveal her lesson plan. The real point of this book is students telling the world what they want to share. Students choosing not to remain silent anymore. Students speaking out against injustice in the world. Students proving that just about any hardship can overcome. Students reminding us that there is something worth salvaging in every child. It is not about what the teacher did, or the students did: It's about what the students want to say. I liked the format of the diary entries. It offered many different perspectives, even for the same event. I preferred it to an impartial narration. Anyone should be proud of a high school student that wrote any of these entries. Perhaps they weren't exceptional, but they were pretty darn good. I would not read this book a second time, but it was worth the first read.
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Summary: Freedom Writers Diary
Review: This book explains in huge detail the lives of young teens going through pretty much hell.The teens' family and friends die sometimes because of their religion, sometimes because of their race and sometimes for no reason at all. I personally don't think thats right.In the beginning of the book,Mrs.Gruwell, the teacher, was a little scared to teach what the school called 'high risk drop out' students. Also in the beginning, the students snicker and laugh at each other. By the end of the book, they are all friends, and the teacher, Mrs. Gruwell, is their best friend. The lives of theese students change so much it's unbelievable. I highly reccomend this book to all people. This book will grab your attention and you will get sucked in as soon as you read the first page! THE FREEDOM WRITERS DIARY, you'll most likely love it!!!!
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Summary: Choppy but reflective.
Review: This book is a good way to really see that there is much more to being a teacher than having a "lesson." There really should be more teachers like her. Good read with the only problem being that some segments are choppy and do not completely connect.
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Summary: Most Powerful book I have ever read.
Review: This Book not only enlightened me on the issues of young people today. It also help changed the life of young people arounf me. Just Powerfully motivating
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Summary: A must-read for any current or future teachers
Review: This book will open your eyes and heart; this book will remind you of the power in writing, in teaching; this book will change your life, or at least it changed mine. After reading Freedom Writers, I talked to my students about it at my first writing group meeting--something I decided to form thanks to Erin Gruwell. Read this book, then illumine the writing path for others.
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Summary: Freedom Writers Rule!
Review: This inspirational book is a must read for teenagers, parents, teachers, and just folks. If i could, i'd buy a copy for everyone i know. In their own voices and in beautifully crafted prose, teenagers tell stories of their daily lives: the physical and emotional war zones they inhabit become real to the reader. With the help of an inspirational teacher, these students read other teenagers' stories and learn to see thier lives in historical context. They read diaries by two girls their own age: Anne Frank, who died in the Holocaust, and Zlata Filipovic, who lived through the war in Sarajevo. This is education with a capital E. Erin Gruwell empowers these young people to transform their realities through the power of the word. The spirit of Anne Frank and the original Freedom Riders lives on in these young heros from Long Beach.
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Summary: Inspiring
Review: This is a very interesting true story that is both inspiring and shocking. It consists of a teacher and students' entries that they put together into a book. When reading this book, it will also make you sit up and listen to these young students' cries for justice. Most of the students were involved in gang activities, drugs, violence in family, poverty and how all this prevent them from getting education. The students were also afraid of their lives as they have friends, family members who get shot. The racial differences were hightened after the Rodney King incident in Los Angeles. .... The book is divided according to class years, and it is very encouraging to see the changes, development that these students underwent and how they manage to overcome obstacles in order to graduate. Along the way, they met many important people, among them the Secretary of Education and they promised themselves that they want to make a difference and sought the non-violent ways to express their frustruation. It is very inspiring to see what a person can make such a huge difference in other people's lives. If only we have more teachers like Erin Gruwell who goes above and beyond for her students.
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Summary: An exceptional, bittersweet story
Review: This is an enormously inspirational story. If you have no idea what it's like to grow up in urban America today, these teens paint a picture of the daily struggle for survival that is every bit as poignant as "Boys 'N the Hood" or "Fresh." Erin Gruwell's work on their behalf is sensational. I have a few misgivings, though, as I often do when reading stories about such 'Super-Teachers': that they achieve so much with their students at the expense of everything else that gives balance to a life. Ms. Gruwell worked extra jobs to pay for field trips, supplies, etc. She was often at work late into the evening. What isn't made explicit-though one can pick it up immediately-is the cost of such sacrifices. No relationship with a significant other, which is something that challenges a person to grow in a way that an imbalanced relationship (such as a teacher with his or her students) does not do. No children to raise, which is among the most important work a person can do in life (listen to how many of her students wish more than anything for a father to be close to). She dedicated her life solely to her teaching, and it's a profession which is always ready to take more of one's time and energy. Those who don't let teaching become their entire lives can wind up being good, even great, teachers for decades. Those who immerse themselves in their teaching to the exclusion of everything else wind up doing what Erin Gruwell (and 50% of all new teachers) did: they leave the profession within five years. Now I read that she's ready to leave her position at CSULB-she's apparently running for Congress. It is difficult to teach as well as she did at both the high school and university level. Harder still, it seems, is to stick with it for the long haul. In the end, it's her life to do with as she pleases. But I think the book is a set-up for many young teachers. Gruwell was not only dedicated to her students, and for four years lived only for them, but she was an exceptionally gifted teacher. If those entering the profession are to emulate her, what's to become of their own lives? How are they to make a career of teaching if their model left after four years? Is 150 students enough? To the last question I could certainly answer "yes"-changing the life of any one person is beautiful. The answers to the other questions are unknown, and that's a sad point which few are willing to acknowledge.
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