The Freedom Writers Diary

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The Freedom Writers Diary

Author	The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject(s)	Diary
Genre(s)	Non-fiction
Publisher	Random House
Publication date	1999
Pages	277 pp

The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them is a nonfiction 1999 book written by The Freedom Writers, a group of students from Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California, and their teacher Erin Gruwell. It is the basis of the 2007 movie Freedom Writers, starring Hilary Swank. The Freedom Writers Diary was made up of journals that Erin Gruwell told her students to write in about the troubles of their past, present, and future. The Freedom Writers name is a spinoff of the civil rights group The Freedom Riders.

Gruwell received the inspiration to teach them using the techniques described in the book after intercepting a racist's drawing from one of her students. When she compared the drawings to Nazi propaganda techniques, she drew blank stares. As a result, she assigned them to read and write about The Diary of Anne Frank and Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo. ^[1]

On March 24, 2008, an English teacher at Perry Meridian High School in Indianapolis, Indiana, Connie Heerman, was suspended for a year-and-a-half without pay for using the Freedom Writer's Diary in her classroom against the wishes of the school board.^[2] Administrators objected to racial slurs and sexual content in portions of the book.^[3] Heerman had received permission the previous year to attend a workshop based on the books and obtained permission slips from the parents involved. The school board contends that Heermen did not properly follow the rules to receive permission to use the book.^[4] Erin Gruwell commented on the controversy, saying, "The best way to get a teenager to read a book is to ban it. When someone who is a daunting authority figure says, 'Give us your book,' I think these students [thought], 'There must be something powerful in these words.' "^[3]

The Freedom Writers Foundation continued with exercises and philosophies similar to those used in the original class, and tracks the progress of the original and continuing classes.