The greatest stories that people have heard about throughout their lives are about characters who have worked hard to overcome obstacles, proving the rest of the world wrong by doing so. These underdog stories are highly effective when it comes to their ability to captivate and inspire many different audiences. One specific example of this is in the movie The Freedom Writers. This movie, directed by Richard LaGravenese, is a real life example of people overcoming the circumstances they are surrounded with and making something out of themselves. This story opens up in 1994 California when a first year educator takes on a job that involves teaching the unteachable (Freedom Writers). This movie goes above and beyond because it shows not only the students struggle to achieve better grades, but the struggle of their teacher to give her students another opportunity for their lives. The Freedom Writers is an important story that inspires many people due to the underlying theme that sometimes the outsiders and the underdogs can overcome their obstacles and achieve their ultimate goal. In order to develop an understanding for the movie, it is important to understand what was happening within the community of Long Beach, California. This storyline takes place shortly after the California Race Riots. These riots caused a great divide among the many different ethnicities of people during this time. Due to these previous events, the world that these high school students had grown up in
The main issue throughout the movie is racism and the perspectives on different cultures. The movie is set in Los Angeles, a city with a cultural mix of every nationality. The movie starts out at
In the 1920s, when movies were a brand new concept, people went to see the pictures in order to escape from their lives. In these movies, everything worked out in the end and they depicted happy, perfect lives. As the Depression raged on, movies were a distraction from the wear and tear of normal life. With the movie Freedom Writers, however, that is not the case. Freedom Writers tells the impossibly true story of a first-year teacher, Erin Gruwell, and the difficulties she faced in her classroom of supposed hopeless cases. In Long Beach, California, her students dealt with gang violence, drugs, and racism in their everyday lives. They lived in constant fear. The movie emphasizes how Gruwell wrestles with the public school system, motivates her students to learn, and changes their lives in the process. Directed by Richard LaGravenese, it came out in 2007 with stars such as Hilary Swank, Patrick Dempsey, and April Hernandez gracing the screen (IMDb). In contrast to the early movies, Freedom Writers deals with issues that are still a problem today, such as a focus on the majority instead of helping students who need extra assistance or encouragement.
“Freedom Writers” is a powerful film that is based on a true story about a teacher named Erin Gruwell, who struggles to connect with her students to make them believe that they can succeed in life, and to show them that their lives, experiences, and knowledge is valuable, all while attempting to unify them and to overcome racial segregation and gang violence that is part of their daily lives. Gruwell focuses on introducing the concepts of discipline and obedience in her classroom. She gradually begins to earn their trust and buys them composition books to record their diaries, in which they talk about their experiences of being abused, seeing their friends die, and being evicted; Gruwell refers to the composition books as “The Freedom Writers Diary.”
The film “Freedom Writers” is a film produced in 2007 and directed by Richard LaGravenese. The film is based on a book which was written by Erin Gruwell, who was a teacher at Woodrow Wilson Classical High School in Eastside, Long Beach, California. The book was first published in 1999.
Freedom Writers is a movie based on the book The Freedom Writers Diary by teacher Erin Gruwell. The movie was directed by Richard LaGravenese and it was released in 2007. This movie discusses significant themes such as stereotyping and racial discrimination but most important the power of tolerance and understanding. The purpose of this movie is to promote the message that knowledge is power and in a world filled with disparities where hundreds of ethnic groups convey and interact humans are obliged to accept and tolerate the differences that define each person. This film is a perfect example of how these rhetorical components are used to create an effective argument. The director of the movie as well as the characters build their
The film “Freedom Writers” by Richard LaGravenese has been successful in terms of expressing the emotions of students through their diaries but also engaging the audience emotions through the characters’ gang experiences. The character of Mrs Gruwell(Mrs G) is a teacher of low performing students trying to achieve their goals against all odds. Techniques the director used to show this include flashbacks, non-diegetic sound, spot light and pan shots which are all important in sending the message to the audience that family problems and violence have a big impact on the students lives.
The movie “Freedom Writers” is based on a true story. Hilary Swank as Erin Gruwell plays an inspirational teacher at Wilson High School. She is ready to take on the teaching world as she steps inside Wilson High School for her first day. Her class, varied with teenagers of different ethnic backgrounds, wants nothing more than to just get through the day. African Americans, Latinos, Asians, gang members, and much more are from poor neighborhoods, that all share a similar hatred for each other. On the first day of teaching she is very scared and unsure, but she knows she has to stop the racism in the class as well as their attitude towards life. Despite her students' persistent refusal to participate
In the beginning of the movie Freedom Writers, Ms. Gruwell’s students have trouble communicated with each other. This is because the characters are unwilling to associate with anyone outside their ethnic/racial groups. There could be multiple reasons to why the students would act this way but one of the main reasons is that they have been taught since birth that people will judge them based on their race or ethnicity. Because of this they have always been separate and grew up to be defensive and aggressive and they choose their groups or “gangs” who are within their racial groups. These “friends” also influence why the students are so afraid to associate with anyone outside that group by threatening to hurt them or beat them up. While with
In the Freedom Writers there were challenges that they had to overcome including the inequalities of students at Wilson High School. These inequalities ranged from skin color, background, grades, and age. We try to keep this from happening at OHS, but it can come out in some ways even here. This isn’t what we want to happen since it divides us as students and as a school, but it is almost impossible to keep from happening especially at a school as large as OHS.
In the movie, The Freedom Writers Mrs. Erin Gruwell (Hillary Swank) plays a role of a dedicated teacher who did all she could, to help her students learn to respect themselves and each other. She has little idea of what she's getting into when she volunteers to be an English teacher at a newly integrated high school in Long Beach, California. Her students were divided along racial lines and had few aspirations beyond basic survival. Mrs. Gruwell was faced with a big challenge when a group of freshmen students showed her nothing but disrespect which made it hard for her to communicate, teach and understand them. However, Erin Gruwell was determined that no matter the cost she would teach her students not only
The film Freedom Writers directed by Richard La Gravenese is an American film based on the story of a dedicated and idealistic teacher named Erin Gruwell, who inspires and teaches her class of belligerent students that there is hope for a life outside gang violence and death. Through unconventional teaching methods and devotion, Erin eventually teaches her pupils to appreciate and desire a proper education. The film itself inquiries into several concepts regarding significant and polemical matters, such as: acceptance, racial conflict, bravery, trust and respect. Perhaps one of the more concentrated concepts of the film, which is not listed above, is the importance and worth of education. This notion is
Eva’s soliloquy- “you can’t go against you own people, your own blood.” - Symbolism of conformity.
This summed up their sense of belonging, ensured by having their own territory and being with their own race. The need for belonging stemmed from their perception and actual experiences not only in school but the community as a whole. There was always the fight for one’s own turf. This was emphasized during this scene that showed the two Latinos who had to run from the group of Cambodians who were chasing them and the attack on these Latinos that necessitated them to split up. Unfortunately the woman made a wrong turn and bumped into another group which caused her to be physically harmed. This scene highlighted that though they belonged to one community, they did not quite see themselves as part of that community and sub-groups or tribes abounded because it was in these smaller groups that they found security. They needed to form groups based on their race and color. They stuck together and supported each other because they found comfort from one another just like members of a family caring for each other. They became so distrusting of other groups because of the past painful events that happened in their lives. Every race needed to establish that they were not inferior over the others. But all of these initial behavior and attitude changed because their English teacher paved the way for them to trust and support each other. As Eva said “It’s a sign of respect... for you”,
She thought that it was the right thing to do. yes, because it was the honest thing to do. her friends are mad at her because she could have lied and their buddy wouldn’t have gone to prison. And her dad doesn’t even want to talk to her.
The movie Freedom Writers is about Erin Gruwell who is starting her first year as an English teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School. This school is racially divided with many gangs and violence erupting at any time. Ms. Gruwell was the students main subject of hate too. After having a discussion with her students about what they were feeling about their lives and situations, she took the responsibility of educating the students no matter what the cost was. She would eventually get through to the teens by passing out journals for them to write their personal life stories in. As the year went on, the students started to trust Ms.Gruwell. The next academic year, she had the students getting along with one another and reading The Diary of Ann Frank. She faced many critics within the school, but she ultimately succeeded.