Over multiple-day workshops, Erin Gruwell and the Freedom Writers Foundation staff provide materials and convey grade-specific approaches to using The Freedom Writers Diary, The Freedom Writers Diary: Teacher’s Guide and ancillary materials in the classroom. Teachers participate in and learn a pedagogical framework through which they can engage students in the learning process, enlighten them intellectually, and then empower them to achieve their academic and civic goals. Interactive icebreakers, substantive writing lessons and analytical tools, as well as strategies and techniques for promoting service learning, are covered in each workshop. The Institute also places teachers within a professional learning community that is devoted to helping teachers help each other.

The training integrates reading, writing, vocabulary and grammar with a variety of learning modalities, all focused on a common theme. Each lesson plan for the ENGAGE, ENLIGHTEN and EMPOWER sections contains five important educational elements:

1. Implementing different learning modalities
2. The use of visual graphics
3. Journal writing
4. Adherence to academic standards
5. Authentic assessment

What follows are brief introductions from Erin Gruwell to each of these elements.

1) LEARNING MODALITIES

Many of the Freedom Writers struggled with learning disabilities (dyslexia) or behavioral challenges (Attention Deficit Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). In addition, some were English Language Learners. As a new teacher, I desperately tried a variety of ways to engage my students and bring my activities to life.

Little did I know that my whacky idea of bringing in two sandwiches and some clumsy drawings of sandwich ingredients to teach about writing would prove successful. Later, I found out why this technique worked. Dr. Howard Gardner, a Harvard professor, advanced the theory of multiple intelligences to illustrate that all human beings have a repertoire of skills for solving different problems; within these repertoires, however, individuals have different learning modalities. By bringing in sandwiches, sketches, and other elements to teach the writing process, I managed to activate my students’ linguistic, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, and interpersonal learning modalities.*

Following suit, your students will have opportunities to use different learning modalities as they move from activity to activity. Each lesson plan includes a list of materials that you will need, ranging from popular culture (music and clips), to food items (peanuts and Froot Loops), to art supplies (crayons and yarn). Be sure to check ahead of time what you will need for each activity. We also suggest that you have a television and DVD player, a CD player, and a computer.

2) VISUAL GRAPHICS

I found that traditional note taking was often a significant challenge for the Freedom Writers. Allowing my students to process information and demonstrate their comprehension through visual techniques greatly enhanced the learning process. I am not artistic by any means, but I found that admitting my lack of talent seemed to bolster my students’ sense of artist confidence. Suddenly, my creative students were tempted to submit their own visual graphics.

We have included student-drawn visual graphics with each activity in this guide, as well as explanations for how to use them. Your students may think these visual graphics are corny, so play off their reaction and challenge them to do better! Your students can create their own visual graphics for an activity using a black marker and blank sheet of paper. Add their names along with a copyright symbol at the bottom of the original, photocopy, and distribute to the class. Have contributors come to class early and draw their images on the board so that you can use the new graphic while modeling the activity for the class.

3) JOURNAL WRITING

To mirror the Freedom Writer experience, we recommend that you provide journals for your students prior to reading The Freedom Writers Diary. By keeping journals, students learn to value writing as a process. Journal writing is an avenue through which your students can respond to events in their personal lives and in their academic lives. Because all the students will keep journals at the same time, they bond as a community of writers, reflecting on their individual and shared experiences at school, at home, and in their neighborhoods.

The license to write freely, without fear of criticism or judgment, is central to the success of student journals. The Freedom Writers method allows students to voice their own truths, however painful or awkward, in honest, unvarnished prose. Too often, I believe, writing is rewarded merely on the basis of standard spelling, punctuation and usage. Teachers should also value vivid, forceful student writing that actually says something. Encouraging students to use their own voices unleashes their potential for powerful self-expression and deeply effective storytelling.

The Teacher’s Guide also includes activities that require students to use different writing styles in different contexts for different audiences. As students learn to edit their own and each other’s prose for a specific purpose (such as letters mailed to guest speakers or stories “published” in the Class Book), they develop skills essential to success in the classroom and beyond. Many educators have used The Freedom Writers Diary as a launching pad to discuss specific themes and inspired journal writing in their classrooms. In the Appendix, we have provided thematic writing prompts for every diary entry.

4) ACADEMIC STANDARDS

The Freedom Writers Diary can easily be taught as literature on its own. However, using this Teacher’s Guide will help you fulfill the requirements established by English Language Arts national standards. The current trend in education is for all curricula to be standards-based. As teachers, we must abide by the standards that our state and districts have adopted to ensure that our students are meeting their achievement goals in each academic area. We have aligned each activity in this guide with the Language Arts standards formulated by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Standards can be daunting, something imposed from the outside. However, the language of the NCTE standards does a good job of emphasizing the learner at the center of the academic process. While most states have their own specific standards, there are also many commonalities and interrelated themes that we address that are specified in greater detail on the website for the National Council for Teachers of English: www.ncte.org.

5) AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

Standardized tests are a reality of our educational system. Regardless of how teachers may personally feel about the effectiveness of such testing programs, there is no way around them. But it does not follow that teaching to the test is the best way to educate our students, or even to help them achieve top scores. I believe that the best teaching and the best learning happen when you teach to a student, not to a test. 

This Freedom Writers Method or its resources, do not include quizzes, multiple-choice tests, or standardized essays. Instead, every activity is organized around the idea of authentic assessment. In authentic assessment, students are asked to demonstrate their language arts skills through meaningful and relevant real-world tasks; teachers, meanwhile, monitor the strengths and needs of their students as they progress from activity to activity.

Our lesson plans include multiple forms of authentic assessment:

• Visual graphics: The graphics associated with each activity provide an immediate way of measuring the level of student engagement and achievement.
• Open-ended questions: Activities include open-ended language exercises that allow students to employ imagination, creativity, and critical thinking skills.
• Language skills assessment: A range of writing assignments, including interviews, letter writing, and a feature story, provide opportunities for evaluating student progress in reading and writing.
• Portfolios: We suggest that all assignments be collected in portfolios (three-ring binders work best) as a way of tracking students’ developmental progress and showcasing students’ work at the end of the unit. Portfolios welcome multiple audiences, including the student, classmates, teachers, and even parents.
• Self-evaluation: An integral component of authentic assessment is self-evaluation, giving students an opportunity to review their academic progress.

It is my firm belief that authentic assessment does not compete with, but rather enhances student performance on mandated tests. By honoring their reading, writing, and communication skills through meaningful activities in which they are fully engaged, students develop critical thinking skills that serve them in testing environments and in the world at large.