Guest Blogger: Bory 1

Freedom writers is a moving journey of a teacher’s perseverance to motivate young minority high school students trying to prove everyone they are good enough for the world. In the movie, there is a new teacher and her name is Mrs. Gruwell and she is assigned to the minority class. They are trouble makers from the streets and have a hard time with not only fitting into this rich Caucasian filled school, but getting along with each other. There is a lot of gang violence in the movie and each student that Mrs. Gruwell teaches shares a unique and heart filled story. At first she does not know how she will get through these kids because they seem very disrespectful and rude to her at first, but eventually she gives them each an individual journal they can write in and share their life in a new and interesting way to them. At first no one puts it in the cabinet to read, but eventually the students gain her trust and leave their journals in a shelf to indicate she has permission to read their life story. She realizes that each and every one of these kids has their own struggles they face and their problem at school isn’t any different from the streets of Long Beach, California, full of racial issues and violence. Throughout the movie she helps these kids get along better and learn more and more about each other. They all go through a journey together and find out they don’t have so many differences at all. I really think this movie teaches a good lesson for everyone and lets people know that race is only one factor of a person and people shouldn’t be judged by their appearance and origin of birth.