Movie Review: Freedom Writers

For my birthday Tara took me to see the movie Freedom Writers. I have to say I've been looking forward to the film for quite a while. About 7 years to be exact. While I was still teaching I came across the Freedom Writers' story while watching Good Morning America one day. I was immediately hooked and bought the book later that afternoon. If you can see the film, great - but make sure you take the chance to read the book. It's so much better. I couldn't believe the narratives in the book. Each student had met with so much heartache, that the chance to write their story must have been cathartic, to say the least.

After reading the novel, I changed a good portion of my curriculum to include journal writing as part of every class. Each of my students was required to purchase a journal and the first 15 minutes of every class was spent writing down their stories. We may not have had a "Freedom Writers" moment, but my students really looked forward to writing everyday. I did to. For me, it was the first time since my mission that I had written in journal 3 or 4 times a week. It's fun to look back at some of the things that went on during that time. Buying a house, trying to get pregnant, 9/11 were all captured as part of my journal.

Besides writing every day we also read stories about other teenagers writing journals and telling their stories. The Diary of Anne Frank, Zlata's Diary, and yes Freedom Writers Diary became standard texts for my class. Those books were awesome to get kids thinking about the impact our life stories can have on other people. It was a neat project and it's one of the things I miss about being out of the classroom.

Still, there's some closure to the story from my current position. Every year I go to a national conference on technology and two years ago Erin Gruwell, the teacher from Freedom Writers was one of the keynote speakers (not sure the tie-in, but who cares!). I made sure I got to her keynote early, and being a total nerd, I sat on the front row. A few minutes before the presentation, guess who sat in the empty chair next to me - you guessed it, Erin Gruwell. It was fun to tell her the impact her story had on the lives of my former students and on my teaching. She thanked me and seemed genuinely touched to know another success story from the Freedom Writers.

Was that even a movie review? Sorry.