Biography and Legacy of Erin Gruwell

1306 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: advantages and disadvantages of traditional school

Education is a massive part of the world today and it is important every student is able to reach their fullest potential. Erin Gruwell, born in southern California on August 15, 1969, roves to be a symbol of hope and change as she forever changed the lives of her troubled high school students at Woodrow Wilson High School who were “written off by the education system”(Rea,2012) by allowing them a voice and instilling infinite potential in every student.
Long before Gruwell became a teacher she aspired to be a lawyer. However, after seeing the violent L.A riots in 1992 she decided her passion was to make a difference in children’s lives as a teacher. In 1994 Woodrow Wilson High hired Gruwell and gave her classes filled with the “un teachable” “failure” students who didn’t have any respect for school or teachers.() Yet, rather than getting discouraged by the pool of students she was given, Guwell wanted to change the way these kids thought and viewed school and themselves(Adams, 2013). Through her innovative teaching style she was able to communicate to her students by reading them stories about hardships that they could relate to. As time went on her students slowly started embracing her and together wrote The Freedom Writers Diary; which included the inspiring stories in her student’s journals, from their hard upbringings to their everyday struggles and how they were able to stay strong through it all.
I chose Erin Gruwell as my leader to showcase someone with such a passion for making a difference. She and I alike so not believe in the paradigm “separate but equal”, how could something be separated but treated equal at the say time? I find it redundant and so did Gruwell. I admire her strength and courage to make a di...

... middle of paper ...

...ty. - Salem College. Retrieved November 19, 2013, from http://www.salem.edu/events/erin-gruwell-the-original-freedom-writer-empowering-students-faculty-and-the-community
Choi, J. (2009). Reading Educational Philosophies In Freedom Writers. The Clearing House, 82(5), 244-248.
Elsenbach, B., & Kaywell, J. (2013). Making an Impression: YA Authors and Their Influential Teachers. English Journal, 102(5), 74-79.
Erin Gruwell. (n.d.). Cech. Retrieved October 1, 2013, from http://cech.uc.edu/content/dam/cech/centers/hope/docs/Erin%20Gruwell%20Biography.pdf
Mitchell, M., & Jacob, D. (2011). A Toast for Change. Reclaiming Children & Youth Spring, 20(1), 26-28.
Petersen, A. (2009). Their Words, Our Story: Freedom Writers as Scenario of Pedagogical Refor. Film and History, 39(1), 31-43.
Trierweiler, H. (2009). Talking with Erin Gruwell. Talking with Erin Gruwell, 118(4), 27-28.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Jonathan Kozol's The Shame Of The Nation

    750 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are eleven thousand children in public schools in Detroit. Out of those eleven thousand children, only twenty-six of them are white. Third graders wrote a paper to Kozel on what they think about their school day in and day out. The children wrote back how they have nothing. They don’t have a clean school or a clean place to study.

    Read More

  • Comparing Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men And The Freedom Writers

    589 Words  | 2 Pages

    They began to work together to do good like when the students held a concert to get a guest speaker or when their teacher got another job just to get the students books the students where in a dark place and their teacher showed them the light. Most of the students were in gangs and bad situations but she took them out of that. The quote connects to the story because as it states they will stand by you in your darkest moments and Ms. Gruwell encouraged all of the students in their darkest moments when they were all so against one another and turning their back on school she stood by them and didn’t give up. The quote also states ‘’in your greatest moments they’re not afraid to let you shine’’ and she let them shine by giving them the credit for all the hard work they did and standing up for them against her coworkers and just overall believing in them that’s what connects the story The Freedom Writers to the quote

    Read More

  • Comparing Pride in A Good Man is Hard to Find, Good Country People and Revelation

    973 Words  | 2 Pages

    Meyer, Michael, ed. The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999.

    Read More

  • Philip Levine and Robert Hayden: What Work is? Those Winter Sundays

    1448 Words  | 3 Pages

    Levine, Philip. ”What Work Is.” Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Ed. John Schilb and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. Print.

    Read More

  • Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission?

    4200 Words  | 9 Pages

    ...Academic Writing. Ed. Gerald Graff. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 179-189. Print.

    Read More

  • Elements In Kozol's Still Separate, Still Unequal

    913 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jonathan Kozol is a teacher and nonfiction writer who was born on September 5th, 1936 to psychiatrist/neurologist Harry and social worker Ruth. He grew up in Newton, Massachusetts with his sister and parents. They were a middle-class Jewish family. Kozol received an education at Harvard and had previously lived a comfortable life until he decided to move to Boston to teach in a poor neighborhood. This began his new life of dedication for the education children were receiving and began to make it known how unequal education was. Kozol’s works were based off of personal experiences in his life. For example, he wrote about his fourth grade class in Death at an Early Age: The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public Schools. He advocates for those who are receiving a lesser education even though America wants to claim discrimination is no more. Kozol wrote about the experience as his mom and dad’s health degenerated. The couple both died at 102, 2 years apart. The book is a very intimate description of Kozol’s relationship with his parents as their lives came to an end. Kozol continues to write today, and still participates in the battle against discrimination in schools. He currently lives in Byfield Massachusetts with his dog Sweetie

    Read More

  • Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

    943 Words  | 2 Pages

    First Kozol effectively argues to the reader the reality of segregation and inequalities that face our children in public schools by his brilliant use of pathos. He is able to stir a reader’s emotions, through his various testimonies from students, teachers, and facility and arousing imagery. He presents readers with many student testimonials that really paint a vivid portrait of what these children are seeing, feeling, and needing. For example, in one fifteen year old child’s testimony he conveys a sense of this heart wrenching pain, when she tries to explain her understanding of the racial segregation of her neighborhoods and schools. She states, “It’s as if you have been put in a garage where, if they don’t have room for something but aren’t sure if they should throw it out, they put it there where they don’t need to think of it again.” Kozol then solidifies his argument by including a question from the sixteen year old child next to the previous child that states that, “if people in New York woke up one day and learned that we were gone, that we had simply died or left for somewhere else, how would they feel” (205)? Then finally Kozol completes the finishing blow of emotions to the reader wit...

    Read More

  • cathedral

    773 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kirszner, Laurie G.,and Stephen R. Mandell., eds. Literature: Reading, Reacting,Writing. 8th ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage, 2013. Print.

    Read More

  • What You Eat Is Your Business

    1353 Words  | 3 Pages

    Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel K. Durst. "They Say/I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing: With Readings. Vol. 2e. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2012. Print.

    Read More

  • analysis the lottery

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    Schilb, John, and John Clifford, eds. Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. 866. Print.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Podcast ' Three Miles '

    705 Words  | 2 Pages

    Raquel and Melanie are two poverty stricken students that attended University Height’s High School in the South Bronx, because their school was not federal funded, it lacked resources; so it does not come as a surprise, perspective students like Melanie and Raquel have more of a ...

    Read More

  • Promoting Imagination and The Desire to Care in The Classroom

    1151 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hooks, Bell. "Chapter 1 Engaged Pedagogy." Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994. N. pag. Print.

    Read More

  • Modernism: Hills Like White Elephants, by Ernest Hemingway

    1592 Words  | 4 Pages

    and Other Greats : Lessons from the All-star Writer's Workshop. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. Print.

    Read More

  • Inner Vs. Outer Strength

    681 Words  | 2 Pages

    Bambara, Toni C. "The Lesson." Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. 1142-147. Print.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Freedom Writers

    1461 Words  | 3 Pages

    The film Freedom Writers directed by Richard La Gravenese is an American film based on the story of a dedicated and idealistic teacher named Erin Gruwell, who inspires and teaches her class of belligerent students that there is hope for a life outside gang violence and death. Through unconventional teaching methods and devotion, Erin eventually teaches her pupils to appreciate and desire a proper education. The film itself inquiries into several concepts regarding significant and polemical matters, such as: acceptance, racial conflict, bravery, trust and respect. Perhaps one of the more concentrated concepts of the film, which is not listed above, is the importance and worth of education. This notion is distinctly displayed through the characters of Erin, Erin’s pupils, opposing teachers, Scott and numerous other characters in the film. It is also shown and developed through the usage of specific dialogue, environment, symbolism, and other film techniques.

    Read More

More about Biography and Legacy of Erin Gruwell

Open Document