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A review by lanikei
The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them by Erin Gruwell
2.0
I was pretty disappointed by this book from the get-go. Diaries and journals are interesting because you are able to experience someone else's life in real-time. Part of that experience is being immersed in the language, personality, and emotion of the author. The students idolize Anne Frank and Zlata, but don't allow any of their own voices into their writing. Each entry sounds just like the next with only occasional sentences that feel "real" and un-edited.
Good writers capture the energy of their experience, and these students have seen too much to be as bland as these examples portray. The few poems recited - although not great - at least convey some emotion. It's a shame since some of these stories are extremely powerful - issues such as homelessness, child abuse, domestic violence, street violence, peer pressure... all expressed in cookie cutter language that could all be written by the same person.
I expected to see a realistic progression in the journal entries; I wanted to see improvement as these students grew as writers and people. I appreciate a variety of perspectives, but I think the book suffered from not having a consistent batch of identifiable characters that progressed over the course of four years. Anonymous entries further their cause, but detract from the impact and make it harder to "own" the characters as you read.
The book certainly got better as I read. The students certainly had some amazing opportunities, and I was proud to see them develop as people as the book progressed. Perhaps as they got better as writers over the years the later entries were less heavily edited and retained more flavor.
I really wish there had been more information about how the book was compiled and edited. Certainly she couldn't have gotten these students to write the long-winded and introspective entries at the beginning of her first semester. Without that information many of these entries feel so forced and unbelieveable that I found it difficult to read them at all. Even an afterword explaining that the pieces were elaborated on and edited before the published final draft would be helpful. I can understand the students wanting to showcase their best work, but I'd like to see more information about the process.
From an education perspective... I felt like I wasn't getting the whole story about Ms. Grunell and her resources. It's wonderful that she had the support that she did, but it is so glazed over that it seems like it should be within any teacher's grasp. That doesn't seem quite fair to many of the amazing teachers that struggle just to keep their head afloat. I know that she has another book that is more focused on her methods, and maybe that has more of what I was looking for.
Good writers capture the energy of their experience, and these students have seen too much to be as bland as these examples portray. The few poems recited - although not great - at least convey some emotion. It's a shame since some of these stories are extremely powerful - issues such as homelessness, child abuse, domestic violence, street violence, peer pressure... all expressed in cookie cutter language that could all be written by the same person.
I expected to see a realistic progression in the journal entries; I wanted to see improvement as these students grew as writers and people. I appreciate a variety of perspectives, but I think the book suffered from not having a consistent batch of identifiable characters that progressed over the course of four years. Anonymous entries further their cause, but detract from the impact and make it harder to "own" the characters as you read.
The book certainly got better as I read. The students certainly had some amazing opportunities, and I was proud to see them develop as people as the book progressed. Perhaps as they got better as writers over the years the later entries were less heavily edited and retained more flavor.
I really wish there had been more information about how the book was compiled and edited. Certainly she couldn't have gotten these students to write the long-winded and introspective entries at the beginning of her first semester. Without that information many of these entries feel so forced and unbelieveable that I found it difficult to read them at all. Even an afterword explaining that the pieces were elaborated on and edited before the published final draft would be helpful. I can understand the students wanting to showcase their best work, but I'd like to see more information about the process.
From an education perspective... I felt like I wasn't getting the whole story about Ms. Grunell and her resources. It's wonderful that she had the support that she did, but it is so glazed over that it seems like it should be within any teacher's grasp. That doesn't seem quite fair to many of the amazing teachers that struggle just to keep their head afloat. I know that she has another book that is more focused on her methods, and maybe that has more of what I was looking for.