critical thinking

In the Movie “Freedom Writers” that was Directed by Richard LaGravenese tells the story of many different ethnic groups of young teens, and how they fight their way to the top with the support of their teacher Erin Gruwell. Mrs. Gruwell influenced the kids in her English class to come together and succeed when no one else supported them. Even though it meant Mrs. Gruwell became more of an outsider with her efforts she gave up her personal life to help the kids. One of the students named Eva Benitez experienced being and outsider when a tragic event took place one day after school. Even with all the obstacles that were thrown in front of the students with the help and support of their teacher they still managed to come together and do something great. I felt like there were many different situations in the film where people were outsiders, someone could have been an outsider to one group and be more of an outsider to another.

At the beginning of the film Mrs. Gruwell gets hired as a teacher teaching 10 grade English to a very diverse group of kids. In the beginning the other teachers and staff accepted Mrs. Gruwell but as her teaching career matured she quickly became and outsider. The students in her class were undereducated and she was determined to change that but the school wouldn’t provide the funds to help her. So she worked 3 jobs to provide the funds to support what she wanted to teacher her class. I felt that Mrs. Gruwell felt like she was responsible for the kids in her class as if they were her own children. The more Mrs. Gruwell spent on her students the more distant the rest of the staff was towards her because she was making the school look bad when she bought the supplies herself. My opinion on what Mrs. Gruwell did; I felt like was kind of a sacrifice to her life because the more she upset the school became the more they pushed her away. She risked getting fired just so she could help her students at one point in the film her husband even divorced her because of how much she was neglecting him so she could help her English class. I felt like she was bringing herself down to help others in need go up she lost a lot to help her class through school. Mrs. Gruwell jumped through a lot of hoops and pulled a lot of strings to teach a group of kids that were going through hard times and being involved in gangs and teaches them how to work together. Without her sacrifices her student’s education would have been poor.


One student named Eva Benitez was involved in a Hispanic gang while she was in school. Eva seemed to have the attitude that most of the other students had, they all felt like they had a reason to fight for their gang. I felt like all the students were oblivious to the fact that they were all fighting for the same reason. One of the main parts of the gangs was that everyone has every ones back and you stick up for them kind of like a family. When Eva was younger her dad’s gang member was shot and Eva’s father was wrongly accused and sent to jail. Years later Eva was at a gas station and most of her gang members were waiting in the car while she went inside to get food. An African American boy from their school was inside playing a game so a member of Eva’s group decided to shoot the African American boy but missed hitting and killing one of another group’s members. Eva later had to go make a statement in court and everyone expected for her to blame it on the African American kid but instead she ratted out her own gang member. I felt like she did this because partly her father being in jail for something he didn’t do and also because of the good influence she was getting from her English teacher. In the end Eva became and outsider to her gang for telling the truth, they beat her up and shunned her from the group. I felt that Eva knew what was going to happen to her if she told the truth but she did it any way because she saved the African American boys life by not sending him to prison. Eva sacrificed her place in the gang to do the right thing because of the lessons taught in school about how being in a gang is not the right path.


To me I always felt that an outsider was someone who wasn’t accepted in a particular group or even something bigger like at school or a job. An outsider in my opinion is someone who does something that a person or group of people don’t like or approve of. Also if they aren’t nice or if they aren’t into the same things as the rest of the group they might be considered an outsider. I have a close group of friends and we always hang out a lot and sometimes we hang out with random people that aren’t really in our “group”. I consider this one boy named Kevin to be an outsider to our group because we don’t see him all the time and he has an interesting personality that conflicts with the members of my group. Also he can be really rude at times and doesn’t have the same interests as the rest of our group. I think that we consider him to be an outsider because of the fact that everyone has the same opinion about him and he doesn’t work with the flow of our group. I believe that one reason that there are outsiders is because groups of people generally hang out with people who are interested in the same things they are and have similar personalities. When someone comes in who has conflicting characteristics it can throw off the balance of the group. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that he is an outsider to everyone he just needs to find where he belongs.


Even though Mrs. Gruwell gave up her spot as an insider, the sacrifices she made that forced her to become and outsider were more important to her than her own personal life succeeding. She took each of her students under her wing and gave them the opportunity that no one else wanted to give them. Eva learned valuable life lessons and turned her life around completely. She went from a rowdy sophomore to a well educated young girl within a school year all with the help from her English teacher. I think that Mrs. Gruwell didn’t really care about herself being an outsider, to me it always seemed more important when you were younger if you were an outsider or not. Ultimately many people in the film gave up things that were good and bad so they could better their lives in some way. They all did what they felt they had to do to stay on top of the ball, even if it meant accepting being an outsider.