Erin Gruwell & TheFreedom

Writers experience

• The first day of Erin Gruwell as a student teacher in Woodrow Wilson High School in long beach, California was not necessarily a welcome dear teacher.

• The first day of Erin Gruwell as a student teacher in Woodrow Wilson High School in long beach, California was not necessarily a welcome dear teacher.

• Ms. Gruwell received a class fragmentized as into small islands. There were several groups divided by racial and ethnic matters. Latinos, niggers, eastern immigrants and a little white people.

• The first day of Erin Gruwell as a student teacher in Woodrow Wilson High School in long beach, California was not necessarily a welcome dear teacher.

• Ms. Gruwell received a class fragmentized as into small islands. There were several groups divided by racial and ethnic matters. Latinos, niggers, eastern immigrants and a little white people.

• Gruwell entered into the class 203 in Woodrow school as a just graduated teacher looking for experience and on the end of the day after being mocked, scorned and threatened by her students, she return home with two choices in mind.

1.Giving up her teaching career.

1.Giving up her teaching career.

2. Going on not involving with the students, just give the subject, period.

But these two choices seemed too unacceptable for Erin Gruwell, then she simply created a new option. She decided to interact with the students, trying to change that hostile environment.

Her success is now celebrated around the world as a unique and amazing educational experience. She and her students of classroom 203 turned into an example of engagement against discrimination and social struggle. Considering that all her students were involved in gang fights in long beach area.

Gruwell and her group o f students engaged by their own succeeded experience dubbed themselves as “Freedom Writers” inspired by the experience lived for group of Afro-Amricans in 1961 that decided to put on proof a law which banned segregation on busses. They became known as “Freedom Riders”.

Freedom Riders – The inspiration

Long Beach Riots (1992)

The Scenery

Long Beach Riots (1992)

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Celebrate

Success

Build Bridges

Believe in your student

s

Create Community

Encourage Collaboratio

n

Expect Accountabilit

y

Motivate your

students

Break down

comfort zones

Establish a Safe

Environment

Validate prior

knowledge

Promote Diversity

Teach Toleran

ce

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Believe in your students

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Break down

comfort zones

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Establish a Safe Environment

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Validate prior knowledge

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Motivate your students

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Encourage Collaboration

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Teach Tolerance

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Promote Diversity

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Create Community

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Build Bridges

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Expect Accountability

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Celebrate Success

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Believe in your students

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Dispite Gruwell was in charge of students considered unteachable

She always believed all her students were capable of learning

Believe in your students

“[Ms.Gruwell]told me she believed in me. I have never heard those words from anyone...specially a teacher.”-Diary #23

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Break down

comfort zones

Gruwell Secret Sauce

On her 1st day of class Ms. Gruwell found her students sat in comfort zones based on race, gang affiliation and familiar faces

Since then she realized that she need to break down those barriers to create an inclusive environment.

Break Down Comfort Zones

“on the streets, you kick it in different' hoods,

depending on your race or where you are from.

And at school, we separate ourselves from people who are different

from us.”-Diary #3

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Establish a Safe Environment

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Ms. Gruwell realized that most of her students come from extremely difficult home environment sometimes very dangerous

Once she notice that her classroom was a kind of refuge from home, she tried to create an environment where they could feel comfortable

Establish a Safe Environment

“I walk in the [class]room and I feel as though all

the problems in my life are not

important anymore. I am home.” – Diary

# 24

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Validate prior knowledge

Gruwell Secret Sauce

If Ms. Gruwell’s students weren’t experts as book

readers or grammar, they had PhD in street life

Thinking like that Ms. Gruwell was able to make

connections between their previous experience

and the new skills they were developing in the

classroom,

Validate prior knowledge

“it’s amazing how savvy they are. They

‘re walking encyclopedia when it comes to pop culture, quoting the lines from the movies verbatim or reciting every lyric

from the latest rap CD... I think the key is to build on what they already know.”-Ms.

Gruwell

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Motivate your students

Gruwell Secret Sauce

When one of her students asked: “why do we have to read books by dead white guys in tights?”

She realized that she needed to find material that would invest them in the outcome of their work. So she introduced her students to authors whose work could be felt by the students as they were talking about the student’s own lives.

Motivate your students

“this story[the last Spin] is a trip. I’ve never read something

in school that related to something that happened in my

life.” – Diary # 14

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Encourage Collaboration

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Ms. Gruwell encouraged her students to work in collaborative groups.

It demonstrated them that teamwork can be more

effective than working alone.

Encourage Collaboration

“We learn together, we

laugh together, we cry together,

and we wouldn’t

have it any other way.”-

Diary #142

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Teach Tolerance

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Teaching tolerance and acceptance of one another was the key component of what made “the Freedom Writers’ experience so unique

Teach Tolerance

“I believe that I will never again feel

uncomfortable with a person of different

race.” – Diary #116

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Promote Diversity

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Ms. Gruwell created an environment where the students could share their life stories.

Her goal was to embrace every element of diversity, be it economic, ethic, religious, or academic and celebrate the richness of those differences.

Promote Diversity

“The diversity of ideas, traditions and spirit is the

true purpose of the Freedom Writers”- Diary #77

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Create Community

Gruwell Secret Sauce

The Freedom Writers treated one another as confidents and began to see themselves as a family. Instead of competing, they helped one another both inside and outside the classroom.

Working as a community for a common goal made change possible.

Create Community

“through their writing, they shared a common identity, which

united them into a community that connected them, not separated them from the

world.” – Epilogue, p. 276

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Build Bridges

Gruwell Secret Sauce

While Ms. Gruwell taught their students, she made part of he educational mission to bring parts of the outside world to her students. Things that they never had been exposed yet, into the classroom.

The students need a sense of education as continuity . It is not confined into the classroom or the school.

Build Bridges

“Ms. Gruwell can never do things the simple way. She always has some big teaching scheme even when we are nowhere near a classroom,”-Diary #116

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Expect Accountability

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Ms. Gruwell found out that if she make her students accountable and have high expectations, they will rise to meet them

She always expected them to succeed and they did.

Expect Accountability

“[Ms. Gruwell] showed me that excuses will not bring

about success and that adversity is not something

you walk with but something you leap over.”

– Diary #157

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Celebrate Success

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Failure in Ms. Gruwell’s class was not an option. By developing a comprehensive curriculum that engage, enlightened and empowered her students, she was able to help them make valuable connections between the classroom and their lives.

Celebrate Success

“Historians say history repeats itself, but in my case I have managed to break the circle

because I am going to graduate from high school and go to college, an opportunity my

parents never had.” – Diary #105

Gruwell Secret Sauce

1. Believe in your students 2. Break down comfort zones3. Establish a Safe Environment4. Validate prior knowledge5. Motivate your students6. Encourage Collaboration7. Teach Tolerance8. Promote Diversity9. Create Community10. Build Bridges11. Expect Accountability 12. Celebrate Success

Gruwell Secret Sauce

EE

E

Gruwell Secret Sauce

Stage Process

1.Engage your students 

2.Enlighten your students

3.Empower your students

Engage your students

Engage your students

Show your students the objectives of what they are learning.

Engage your students

Show your students the objectives of what they are learning.

Create an atmosphere in which the students can share their opinions.

Engage your students

Show your students the objectives of what they are learning.

Create an atmosphere in which the students can share their opinions.

Give them concrete reasons to seek excellence.

Engage your students

Show your students the objectives of what they are learning.

Create an atmosphere in which the students can share their opinions.

Give them concrete reasons to seek excellence.

Help them make connections between who they are as individuals and who they are as students.

How to engage your students

How do you engage your students?

Enlighten your students

Enlighten your students

Give your students all the support they need to be able to learn

Enlighten your students

Give your students all the support they need to be able to learn

Create forms of receiving their feedbacks. Use their feedbacks

Enlighten your students

Give your students all the support they need to be able to learn

Create forms of receiving their feedbacks. Use their feedbacks

Figure out the best way to teach each student

Enlighten your students

Give your students all the support they need to be able to learn

Create forms of receiving their feedbacks. Use their feedbacks

Figure out the best way to teach each student

Explore their own opinions and reactions within a “real world” context.

How to enlighten your students

How do you enlighten your students?

Empower your students

Empower your students

Push your students to put into test what they have been learning.

Empower your students

Push your students to put into test what they have been learning.

Give them security to act by themselves

Empower your students

Push your students to put into test what they have been learning.

Give them security to act by themselves

Encourage them to deal with the frustrations.

How to empower your students

How do you empower your students?

Erin Gruwell and the Freedom Writers have received many awards, including the prestigious “Spirit of Anne Frank Award”, and have appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show, Primetime, Good Morning America and the View, to name a few. Erin Gruwell is also a charismatic motivational speaker who spreads her dynamic massage to students, teachers and businesspeople around the world. She leads the nonprofit Freedom Writers Foundation and lives in Southern California.

Erin Gruwell and the Freedom Writers had put the experience lived into the classroom 203 in a book called “The Freedom Writers Diary”.

In 2007 the film maker Richard Lagravenese made a movie based on the diaries written by the freedom Writers.

Sources:

Books:

“The Freedom Writers Diary – Erin gruwell and the freedom writers foundation

“the Freedom Writers Diary, teacher's guide - Erin Gruwell and the freedom writers foundation

Teach with your heart – Erin Gruwell.

Movie:

The freedom Writers –

directed and written by Richard Lagravenese

Conceived by André Stanley Based on Erin Gruwell’s books

andrestanleybrazil@gmail.com