A Positive Choice | The Freedom Writers Diary : How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change...

Connect with Life of Inner City Teens | The Freedom Writers Diary : How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World ... | Freedom Writers, Zlata Filipovic

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	• The Freedom Writers Diary : How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World ... Freedom Writers, Zlata Filipovic Main Street Books, 1999 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 140 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A view of ghetto life.

Raw, powerful, descriptive. In language used in daily life, teenagers describe their fight to overcome the ghetto life, to become better than those mired around them. It's not all honey and roses, but through the efforts of the teacher and the students, success can be measured. A good story told by those that lived it. It will bring tears, frustration, and some feeling of hope that tomorrow can be better.

Should be read by all high school students!

A Positive Choice

I purchased the book just prior to the movie appearing in theaters. The book was well-written, although the style used to shield the teenage authors did lend a feel of "fiction" to the manuscript. As a teacher, I recognized much of what happened to Ms. Gruwell in her first years of teaching. The book is really not much different from books written by Esme Codell, Leslie Baldacci or LouAnne Johnson. The teacher goes to a school that isn't the best, and performs a miracle. The teacher isn't well-liked by the other staff in the building, but they make it through.
These are all great and inspiring; I've been reading books like this since before I became a teacher. So, if we recognize that what the authors of these books are doing is good teaching, why don't we encourage more teachers to be like this?

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Connect with Life of Inner City Teens

Once in a while you come across a book that can touch you by allowing you to connect to the experience of other people. Individuals who might be removed from your everyday life. Yet whose story allows you to understand their own personal struggle told in their own voice. Often books will describe the problems inner city youth face but rarely are they given a voice to tell their own story. This is a very inspiring book that is worth reading on many levels!

Also try:

On the Move
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime SarajevoRevised Edition
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Nexus: A Neo Novel

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Classroom Excellence

Take a group of poorly motivated teenagers, place them in a school system that has long held them in contempt, mix in a high-energy, new teacher and sprinkle liberally with innovative, thought provoking teaching techniques - the result is The Freedom Writers Diary. This compendium of thoughts, fears, frustrations and dread - spelled out in gut-wrenching clarity through the actual words of Long Beach California teenagers, most of whom have lived (and some died) outside the mainstram of secondary education, is truly an inspiring work. Kudos to the teacher who bravely went where far more "experienced" educators feared to tread. This book is riveting - a "must read" for anyone who has ever attempted to motivate students who ethnicity, race and socio-economic status has placed them in harm's way. Don't miss this one - you'll want to read it in one sitting.

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This works!

I've over twenty years in the high school classroom and have never had students, following our daily readings, return to my room to "check out" this book to read that evening then return them the following morning (since I only purchased a class set)....Unassigned Homework!...They read this 'cause the identify with so many of the stories...A great book? No...but since kids seldom read the great ones, this one serves quite well...Its acknowledgement of Anne Frank, The Color Purple, and Catcher in the Rye (among other valuable classic reads) does encourage some kids to seek other fine books...

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