Dennis van Vreden/annofreedom

Freedom Writers

"Freedom Writers is a 2007 American drama film starring Hilary Swank. It is based on the book The Freedom Writers Diary by teacher Erin Gruwell who wrote the story based on Woodrow Wilson Classical High School in Long Beach, California. The title is a play on the term "Freedom Riders", referring to the multiracial civil rights activists who tested the U.S. Supreme Court decision ordering the desegregation of interstate buses in 1961.
The idea for the film came from journalist Tracey Durning, who made a documentary about Erin Gruwell for the ABC News program Primetime Live. Durning served as co-executive producer of the film." Source: Wikipedia

starts with telling the story about the neighborhood of the school the story takes place.

gang violence is common. people attack each other for their race. latina girl (Eva Benitez played by April Hernandez) gets attacked by her family as a test to see if she won't break. people get shot every time a car stops by.

Erin Gruwell is the new teacher to a class full of these divided races who immediately start attacking each other.

We follow Eva Benitez explaining how the hierarchy works outside of school. Making clear that she and her 'family' are at the bottom of the pool.

after one of the latin boys draws a picture of a black guy with big lips Erin compares this image to how the Jews were portrayed by the Nazi's

turns out no one in the class room knows anything about the Holocaust.

Erin Gruwell is trying to teach the class about the Holocaust. trying to get them to relate to something. being a minority.

she makes them write their stories and the movie shows you clips of what everyone has been through.

the class makes a field trip payed by Erin herself to a holocaust museum. each person gets a card with a child's photo on it and at the end of the museum they will find out if they survived or not.

after the museum trip, the class each get to meet and hear the stories of Holocaust survivors.

after that the entire class raised money to invite miep gies over to their school and talk to her.

Eva Benitez is left in a conflict where she has to choose to defend her family and lie in a courtroom, or tell the truth and risk getting killed by her family for being a traitor to them. inspired by Miep Gies' story of 'simply doing the right thing' she tells the truth and gets disowned by her family.