Freedom Writers Essay
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
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They were stories of broken and dysfunctional homes, being kicked out of the house for being part of a gang, to being beaten up just because they were different. Reading these journals Mrs. “G” realized how similar each student’s stories were no matter the race, ethnicity or gender. Even though the students did not see eye to eye, they all had many things in common: they were all in gangs; they each had their own stories to tell; each student has dealt with the shooting of a friend, each student want to communicate to others, and each student wanted to be respected.
Upon realizing all of the similarities between each student, Mrs. “G” then began to strive for her students to realize this too, so she comes up with a “line game” for the students. She places a line on the floor with tape and the students walk to the line when the question that Mrs. “G” asks applies to them. At first she asks silly questions like “How many of you have the new Snoop Dogg album?” or “How many of you have seen Boyz n the hood?” but as the game goes on she begins to ask more serious questions like “How many of you have lost a friend to gang violence?” when every single student steps up to the line for each question they begin to realize that beneath their race their ethnicity and affiliation to a gang, that as teenagers they are a lot alike, with many of the same experiences.
As the year goes on the students realize more and more how similar
1. Members of the Catholic or non-Trinitarians would be excluded from toleration under Maryland Law.
Intro/Central Theme: Students in urban schools often lead hectic and complex lives outside of school, as do county and country students but in a different way. So, it is not a surprise that students are bored out the tit by their classwork, especially for the poor kids that get stuck learning grade school level grammar in remedial, low-performing, basic or whatever demeaning name educators hypothesize will make students feel less stupid, even though students are never too stupid to realize that they have been put on hold in the lowest available class, because the school system has decided that they cannot handle appropriately gauged schoolwork, and they eventually grow to accept such treatment as normal. A lack of faith is not what such
Eva’s soliloquy- “you can’t go against you own people, your own blood.” - Symbolism of conformity.
A common theme emerged for the African American people; the government may say that everyone is in this fight together but we, as African Americans, now this is not true. From the segregated military to the non-willing acceptance of African American workers in wartime factories the African American people felt that they fought a two-sided war. This two-sided approach to war took a name for itself, The Double V Campaign. African Americans joined the fight for freedom just like all other Americans, but many thought this to be the time and place to advocate for civil right,
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.
Miss. Hooker’s first grade class is full of unique individuals from all different areas in life. Some have different racial backgrounds, some conquer their academic materials, and some are higher on the financial ladder than others. Seeing these kids all view each other as the exact same, and no one thinking they are better than anyone else is truly amazing. They seem so “pure”.
The Freedom Writters Diary, by Erin Gruwell, is a true story about an english teacher. She started off as a student teacher and is now a teacher at Wilson High School in Long Beach, California. Long beach, California is every ghetto place and much, happen there. From shootings, robbing, and even gangs .
The American Ideological Consensus is that “…the American people have shared much of the same ideals, the same basic principles, and the same patterns of belief” (McClenaghan 104). When America filled itself with ideologically homogenous people, their beliefs started to define our nation and became American identities. If asked what they think of America, peoples of other nations would say that the roads are made of glass, opportunity is in the air, and civil rights are plentiful. These accounts maybe accentuated; however, the underlying message is that the American people have more freedoms then the peoples of other nations do. The most widely known American identity is freedom, and even though that American identity has been tried and
Life within a group that tends to be over looked or down played at times can be quite deadly. Throughout life, many different groups, categories, cultures, and identities will take the toll of action while one is responding either to you or about you. The film I analyzed is Freedom Writers, which is based on a dedicated teacher of the white or Caucasian ethnic group. White being the dominate group in America that tends to have many privileges, which the teacher Erin Gruwell took the notion to step up and develop a hurting school that used to be an A average educational institute. From the words of the head person in charge at Woodrow Wilson High School in Los Angeles, California was the principle that only could do so much to stop success
This selection, Letter by a Female Indentured Servant, really gives you incite as to what life was like in the 1700s as an indentured servant. (Foner, 2011) The reader can really feel the pain she is going through while she was in America trying to pay her dues for passage to what they thought was the promise land. She wanted to ensure her father really knew what kind of horrible life she was living because of the details she included like she was whipped to the degree that she now serves the animals. Apparently, you didn’t speak of the horrible things that would occur as an indentured servant because she writes to her father that she hopes he will pardon the boldness of her complaints and she also hope
Awakening or to awake means “to wake up; to be or make alert or watchful” (Webster 23). This is what Edna Pontellier experienced in The Awakening.
In the movie, Freedom Writers, Mrs. Gruwell is a new teacher who is very excited about her first year of teaching high school, but she encounters students who do not share that same excitement, because they are looked down upon by other teachers for being “unteachable”. The students attend a very diverse high school, but rather than look at that diversity as a blessing they each felt threatened by it and were taught to defend “their own”. The socialization of the students in the movie was a direct cause of the lifestyle that they were raised in. The teens lived in a community that was filled with violence and as a result they were put in a survival of the fittest situation. The teens did what they knew they had to do, regardless if it was
As human beings, we endure each and every day, a constant fight for freedom. Liberty is described as ‘’the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint’’ (Dictionary.com). Relevant examples are found throughout history of the restraints of rights and the ever constant search for true freedom. Perhaps the most atrocious removal can be seen in the Second World War; Legal and fundamental rights were taken away at this time without thought or conscience. Other examples include the segregation of the blacks and white in South Africa during the Apartheid Era, the Vietnam War, and more recently the War on Terrorism (Al-Qaeda). However, these examples can also be seen as unconscious means of evolving society
It's 1994 in Long Beach, California. Erin Gruwell is just starting her first teaching job, as freshman and sophomore English teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School, which, two years earlier, implemented a voluntary integration program. For many of the existing teachers, the integration has ruined the school, whose previously stellar academic standing has been replaced with many students who will be lucky to graduate or even be literate. Despite choosing the school on purpose because of its integration program, Erin is unprepared for the nature of her classroom, whose students live by generations of strict moral codes of protecting their own at all cost. Many are in gangs and almost all know somebody that has been killed by gang violence. The Latinos hate the Cambodians who hate the blacks and so on. The only person the students hate more is Ms. Gruwell. It isn't until Erin holds an illegal discussion about a recent drive-by shooting death that she fully begins to understand what she's up against. And it isn't until she provides an assignment of writing a daily journal - which will be not graded, and will remain unread by her unless they so choose - that the students begin to open up to her.
The perception of liberty has been an issue that has bewildered the human race for a long time. It seems with every aspiring leader comes a new definition of liberty, some more realistic than others. We have seen, though, that some tend to have a grasp of what true liberty is. One of these scholars was the English philosopher and economist J.S. Mill. Mill's On Liberty provided a great example of what, in his opinion, liberty is and how it is to be protected. In this essay we will examine Mill's ideals concerning liberty and point out a few things he may not have been realistic about.