The Freedom Writers Diary Increasing Prior Knowledge

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The Freedom Writers Diary Increasing Prior
Knowledge
Mr. Reetz English Concepts 10B
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The Freedom Writers DIARY

• Getting to know the teacher
• Understanding the setting
• The story behind the stories
• Influence of Freedom Riders

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Introducing the TEACHER

• Graduated from the University of California
  IRVINE
• Began at Woodrow Wilson H.S. in Long Beach,
  California as a student teacher
• Earned full-time teaching position in a classroom
  of low achieving students

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Gruwell CONTINUED

• Reached her students by asking them to make
  movies of their lives, keep journals, and related
  Romeo and Juliet to a gang war
• Writing journals became therapeutic for many of
  the students
• All 150 Freedom Writers graduated from high
  school and many went on to attend college
• The students journals went on to become The
  Freedom Writers Diary

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The SETTING

• The LBC Long Beach, California
• Homicide rate 8 times the national average
• South L.A. Ghettos make crime prevention
  difficult
• Drugs, gangs and poverty rule the area
• LBC made infamous by Snoop Dog and others in the
  90s
• Takes place following LA Race Riots

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The story of the Freedom WRITERS

• Hatred, Racism, and Gang Violence rule the
  atmosphere at Wilson
• Gruwell intercepts a racist drawing and calls
  attention to the holocaust no one has heard of
  it!!!
• Gruwell encourages students to write about their
  experiences being evicted, abused, or watching
  their friends die

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The Freedom Riders

• Defied Jim Crow laws and called for change
• met by hatred and violence
• firebombed in Alabama
• Riders were beaten in Birmingham

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Freedom Riders Freedom Writers

• What do the Freedom Riders and the Freedom
  Writers have in common?
• Both subjected to racially motivated Violence
• Both possess a desire for change
• Both have help from others
• Both ensured their stories would live on!