The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them

As their senior year begins, the students meet with their mentors from Ms. Gruwell’s college class. The students find their mentors inspiring. One student’s mentor, Cheryl Best, also grew up in the projects and had been kidnapped, raped, driven to a desert, and covered in acid. The student is inspired by Cheryl’s perseverance: “For a brief second, Cheryl made me feel as if I was a warrior, destined to make it out of the undeclared war that I call home, the projects” (196). Another student’s mentor arranges for him to visit the Jet Propulsion Lap in nearby Pasadena.

Other students write about their families and trouble with money. One student considers dropping out of school to get a full-time job to help his mother pay for a new apartment, since they have been evicted. Another student has been missing a lot of school to take care of her house and younger sister, as her parents left the country due to her cousin’s murder. While other teachers seem to think she is being irresponsible, the Freedom Writers are encouraging, and she decides not to give up: “I’ll get the money for rent somehow, I’ll catch up in my classes and I’m even going to make time to go with everyone on a college tour with Ms. Gruwell. With such a loving ‘extended’ family, I got back the strength to fight for my dreams: to graduate from high school and go to college.” 

This year, the media attention for the Freedom Writers explodes when Nancy Wride, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times writes a story about the students. All of the attention has resulted in letters and calls from strangers and donations to the students’ college fund. “The power of the media to reach people in every corner of the world is amazing,” one student reflects upon receiving a letter from a stranger in prison (212). 

As they are returning to school from Christmas vacation, Ms. Gruwell learns that the Freedom Writers have won the Spirit of Anne Frank Award. They are to accept the award in person in New York. She nominated the students for the award in October, and when she visited New York in November, they were clearly the front-runners, but she wasn’t sure how they would get the students to New York to accept the award if they won.

Since the Los Angeles Times ran their article on the Freedom Writers, Ms. Gruwell has received many calls from TV shows, magazines, and newspapers. She turns them all down except for Connie Chung invitation to appear on ABC’s Prime Time Live. After accepting Connie Chung’s invitation, she turns her attention to getting her students to Manhattan to accept the award. The clothing company GUESS? offered to help her after the L.A. Times article, so she will see if they can help her get her students to New York.  

GUESS? Offers to fly 45 Freedom Writers to New York to accept their Spirit of Anne Frank award. To decide who will go, the students write essays about why they would be good ambassadors. One student who will be traveling wonders how these strangers are more willing to help him than his own father. Another student is excited to be accepted when she just joined the class this year. They both reflect that the class is like a family.

In New York, Connie Chung interviews the students and they meet journalist Peter Maas, who has written about Bosnia. Toward the end of their visit, they visit the offices of the book publisher Doubleday, who published Anne Frank’s diary, and learn that Doubleday wants to publish their book. The students write that they will need to work together to make sure the book is successful. One student, after reading Animal Farm, worries that their class has too many people who are like Molly, the horse who does not work hard on the farm: “Ms. Gruwell says that the only way the Freedom Writers could be destroyed is from the inside. That is just it, plain and simple! These people (the Mollys) need to get their act together, or get the hell out!” (238).

As the year goes on, the Freedom Writers continue to celebrate successes and learn about their family heritages. One Freedom Writer becomes the prom queen. Another wins an award from the American Jewish Committee for fighting injustice in society. Winning this award motivates her to speak up and tell her mother than she was raped. She learns that the same person molested her cousin, and she decides to report her abuser. “I don’t want to report him just to get revenge,” she writes. “I just want to stop this injustice once and for all” (249).

The students begin to hear back from their college applications. One receives a football scholarship for a PAC-10 school, and he reflects about how, before Ms. Gruwell’s class, he was hooked on nitrous oxide. Another has to choose between playing professional baseball and attending college on a baseball scholarship. Another is accepted to UCLA. Still, the students face difficulties. One is accepted at a technical college but has to defer because his father is ill. Another discovers that she is pregnant and decides to keep the baby.

At graduation, the student with cystic fibrosis wins “Most Inspiring Student Award” and a $1,500 college scholarship. The final entry reflects on how far the students and Ms. Gruwell have come since their first day four years ago. “I remember back in our freshman year, people still didn’t understand the importance of a pen instead of a gun,” the student writes. “We’ve come a long way since our days of race riots and Proposition 187 walkouts, though” (269).

After graduation, the Freedom Writers plan to reunite after their first year of college for a trip to Europe to visit Anne’s secret annex. In the meantime, they have to learn to adjust to college without the supportive environment they’d built together in Ms. Gruwell’s classroom. Ms. Gruwell also leaves Wilson to teach at California State University, Long Beach.

Ms. Gruwell reflects that her students learned to use the pen to rebel, and “through their writing, they discovered they shared a common identity, which united them into a community that connected them, no separated them from the world” (276).

Before their trip to Europe, one of the Freedom Writers dies from complications due to cystic fibrosis.