Freedom Writers Essay Sample free essay sample

Freedom Writers is set in the 1990s and tells the narrative of a novice teacher’s interactions with a group of pupils in a Long Beach high school two old ages following the Los Angeles Riots. The movie is based on the book The Freedom Writers Diaries: How a Teacher and 150 Teenss Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. a aggregation of essays compiled from the existent experiences of Erin Gruwell ( 1999 ) and her pupils. known as the Freedom Writers. The instructor in the movie. Erin Gruwell. played by Academy Award winning actress Hilary Swank. begins her teaching calling at Wilson High School learning a remedial fresher English category. Early in the movie. Erin has trouble set uping a connexion with her pupils and turns to her male parent and hubby for support. Erin’s male parent. a former civil rights lawyer played by Scott Glenn. offers counsel. but non the support Erin seeks. We will write a custom essay sample on Freedom Writers Essay Sample or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Scott. Erin’s hubby played by Patrick Dempsey. distances himself from Erin’s work and finally their relationship. Erin dedicates herself to learning her pupils. go forthing small clip for her hubby. She takes on part-time occupations to purchase books for the pupils and spends late darks working in the schoolroom. This finally leads to the distancing between Erin and Scott. Erin merely realizes the consequence of her dedication to her work when Scott asks for a divorce. The module of Wilson High contributes little to assisting Erin in the schoolroom. They offer advice based on institutional criterions and past public presentation of the pupils. some staff proposing that the pupils merely â€Å"don’t want to larn. † At the centre of the movie. lie the narratives of the pupils. The pupils are disbelieving of Erin and her involvement in their lives. Initially. they resist her efforts and garbage to traverse the self-inflicted boundaries they have designated i n the schoolroom. Based on race. the pupils sit within self-segregated groups of Hispanics. African-Americans. and Asian-Americans. Erin attempts to interrupt up the division by delegating pupils seats outside of their preferable country. In an effort to link the civilization of the pupils with course of study. Erin uses a Tupac Shakur vocal for a lesson on analysing poesy. The pupils do non accept Erin’s usage of the vocal. At one point. a public violence breaks out on the lawn of school. Erin walks through the mix of pupils watching the force. She sees some of her pupils contending and one of her pupils transporting a gun. but Erin does nil and returns to the school the following twenty-four hours. During a lesson. Erin intercepts a paper that some of her pupils have circulated in the schoolroom. The paper contains a petroleum drawing of Jamal. an Afro-american pupil. Depicted with overdone characteristics. the pulling inspires Erin to link the events with those of the Nazis. She so begins to learn her pupils about the Holocaust and has them read The Diary of Anne Frank. Besides. she takes the pupils on a trip to the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance and arranges a dinner at which the pupils meet with Holocaust subsisters. Eva. a Latina pupil. confronts Erin about the narrative of Anne Frank. After reading the novel. Eva is upset to larn that Anne dies. Early in the movie. Eva is shown contending with packs and throughout the movie she is placed in hard state of affairss. This penetration into Eva’s personal life is a technique repeated with other pupils in Erin’s category. The movie depicts the personal battles of some of the pupils. which is cardinal to the assignment Erin develops. Erin. recognizing the importance of the student’s lives outside of school. assigns personal diaries to her category. The pupils are instructed to compose daily in the diary. Erin tells the pupils that she will non read the entries unless the pupils have given her permission and that they are allowed to compose about whatever they choose. The diaries are kept in a locked cabinet in the schoolroom. Through these personal contemplations. Erin learns of the society within which the pupils live. These diaries serve as the foundation for the book published by Erin Gruwell. The Freedom Writers Diary URBAN AMERICA The old ages of industrial enlargement after the Civil War brought important alterations to American society. The state became progressively urban. and metropoliss grew non merely in footings of population but besides in size. with skyscrapers forcing metropoliss upward and new transit systems widening them outward. Part of the urban population growing was fueled by an unprecedented mass in-migration to the United States that continued unabated into the first two decennaries of the 20th century. The promise that America held for these new immigrants contrasted aggressively with the rise of legalized segregation of African-Americans in the South after Reconstruction. Meanwhile. ongoing industrialisation and urbanisation left their grade on how people spent their day-to-day lives and used their leisure clip. In 1870. there were merely two American metropoliss with a population of more than 500. 000 ; by 1900. there were six. and three of these — New York. Chicago. and Philadelphia — boasted over one million dwellers. Approximately 40 per centum of Americans lived in metropoliss and the figure was mounting. Although much of the urbanisation occurred in the industrial parts of the Northeast and Midwest. it was a national phenomenon that frequently corresponded to the presence of railwaies. For illustration. Atlanta experienced a rapid economic recovery in the last one-fourth of the century. and Los Angeles became a boomtown in the eightiess due to the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe railroads. Because the birth rate in the United States declined in the late 19th century. urban growing reflected an internal migration of Americans from farms and little towns to the larger metropoliss and the abroad migration that brought 1000000s of people to U. S. shores. The new in-migration. B efore the Civil War. in-migration to the United States mostly originated in Northern and Western European states. such as Great Britain ( peculiarly Ireland ) . Germany. and Scandinavia. with smaller Numberss of immigrants from China and Mexico subsiding in California and the Far West. In the 1880s. nevertheless. the beginning of immigrants shifted to Southern and Eastern Europe. A combination of deteriorating economic conditions. war. and religious/ethnic persecution compelled Jews ( from Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire ) . Greeks. Italians. Poles. Russians. Serbs. and Turks to come to the â€Å"Golden Land† of America. Although historiographers distinguish between the â€Å"old† ( pre-1880 ) and â€Å"new† ( post-1880 ) in-migration in footings of the immigrants’ states of beginning. it is a slightly arbitrary differentiation ; immigrants from the Balkans and Russia were in the United States early in the century. and Irish and Germans continued to get after 1880. Another popular misconception is that all immigrants found lasting places in the United States. In fact. possibly every bit many as three out of every ten new reachings ( most of them individual immature work forces ) returned to their fatherland after they earned adequate money to purchase land or put up their ain concern. Immigrants moved into the poorer subdivi sions of the major metropoliss — New York’s Lower East Side. for illustration — and frequently into vicinities abandoned by upwards nomadic immigrant groups. Seeking familiar milieus. they tended to populate and work with people from their native state. Although their kids attended public schools and rapidly learned English. immigrant parents continued to utilize their native lingua. transfering a spot of the Old World into the new. Whether nicknamed Little Italy. Little Bohemia. or Chinatown. immigrant vicinities were rich with Old World languages. from the words printed in the newspapers and on the marks in shop Windowss to the voices heard on the streets. These vicinities. which helped ease the passage from cub ( as fledglings were frequently called ) to citizen. were awfully overcrowded. with upward of 4. 000 people housed on a individual block. Such overcrowding contributed to poverty. offense. and disease. Native-born Americans were troubled by the inflow of aliens. who seemed really different from earlier immigrants. because earlier immigrants spoke English ( for illustration. the Irish ) or followed the Protestant faith ( such as Germans or Scandinavians ) . Furthermore. new immigrants were frequently portrayed as unsafe gro ups ready to sabotage the American political system or as menaces to the occupations of American workers because of their willingness to settle for lower rewards. Given these attitudes toward aliens. it is non surprising that calls for limitations on in-migration began to sound. In 1882. Congress denied inmates. paupers. and the mentally ill the right to come in the United States and three old ages subsequently prohibited contract labourers ( immigrants whose transition was paid in return for working for a certain period of clip ) . Neither jurisprudence had much affect on what was basically an unfastened in-migration policy. The Chinese Exclusion Act ( 1882 ) . on the other manus. suspended in-migration from China for 10 old ages ; it was extended for another decennary in 1892 and so was made permanent in 1902. The jurisprudence was non repealed until 1943. Skyscrapers and mass theodolite. As more and more people crowded into the big metropoliss. the value of urban land increased. The solution to lifting costs of existent estate and the demand to maximise the usage of available infinite was to construct up. The handiness of inexpensive dramat is personae Fe and. subsequently. structural steel. improved fireproofing. and the electric lift allowed for the building of taller and taller edifices. The firstskyscraper was the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago. completed in 1884. Chicago became the place of the skyscraper because of the black fire of 1871 that destroyed most of the cardinal concern territory. The edifice codifications that went into consequence after the fire required that all new building usage incombustible stuffs. Office edifices of 20 or more narratives were common in big metropoliss throughout the state by the terminal of the 19th century. The progresss in architecture and design that skyscrapers represented did non widen to residential lodging ; the high-rise flat house was a twentieth-century phenomenon. One effort at bettering lodging for the hapless really had the opposite consequence. The dumbbell tenement. which was introduced in New York in 1879. had four flats and two lavatories on each floor and was indented in the center. bring forthing its characteristic â€Å"dumbbell† form. When two tenements were built following to each other. the indentures created an airshaft that provided limited airing and visible radiation to the interior flats. Developers seized on the design. because it allowed them to do full usage of the little 25-x-100-foot metropolis e difice tonss. A block lined with dumbbell tenements housed more than 4. 000 people. significantly adding to overcrowding in hapless vicinities ; future building was banned in New York in 1901. Improved urban transit helped determine the modern metropolis. Early developments included elevated steam-driven trains ( 1870 ) and the debut of the overseas telegram auto in San Francisco ( 1873 ) . The usage of electricity in the 1880s led to inventions such as streetcars in many metropoliss. the first belowground trains ( Boston. 1897 ) . and New York’s famed metro system ( 1904 ) . Mass theodolite helped to alter life forms. As streetcar or metro lines extended beyond what used to be the metropolis bounds. the first suburbs were created. ensuing in residential segregation by income. While immigrants and the hapless remained in the cardinal metropolis. the in-between category could populate farther off from their occupations and commute to work. Bridges besides contributed to the outward enlargeme nt of metropoliss. Brooklyn Bridge. completed in 1883 and the longest suspension span in the universe at the clip. linked the so metropolis of Brooklyn with Manhattan. Urban political relations and reform. In the late 19th century. municipal authorities frequently failed to run into the demands of its components — citizen and immigrant alike. In many metropoliss across the state. power rested non in the custodies of elective functionaries but with the foreman who handpicked the campaigners for office and controlled the ballot through the political machine. or organisation. that he ran. Some of the foremans were New York’s William Marcy Tweed and George Washington Plunkitt. Kansas City’s â€Å"Big Jim† Pendergast. and Cincinnati’s George Cox. Although reformists bitterly attacked the corruptness and inefficiency that went along with foreman political relations. the system did supply valuable services. In return for immigrants’ ballots and assist forming runs. foremans could set up occupations on the turning metropolis paysheets for them or their kids. Foremans besides provided the hapless with money and nutrient and helped them work out jobs with the constabulary or other metropolis bureaus. In amount. political machines ran a large-scale public assistance system at a clip when even the c onstruct of a societal safety cyberspace was unheard of. The strong late-nineteenth-century urge to assist the hapless and recent immigrant reachings frequently had a clearly Christian overtone. Groups like the Young Men’s Christian Association. whose North American subdivision was founded in 1851. grew quickly after the Civil War. and an American subdivision of the Salvation Army was established in 1880. Charitable aid was encouraged by the Social Gospel. a doctrine embraced by a figure of Protestant curates. which noted that personal redemption came through the improvement of society and that churches could assist convey this about by contending poorness. slum conditions. and inebriation. Churches built secondary schools. opened libraries. put up talks. and took on societal plans in the hope of pulling the working hapless. The colony house motion was a unsectarian attack to the same jobs addressed by the churches. Established in the poorest vicinities. colony houses served as community centres whose primary map was to assist immigrant households adjust to life in the United States. They offered a assortment of services. including babys rooms and kindergartens. categories on run uping. cookery. and English. and a scope of athleticss and diversion plans. The first colony house was the Neighborhood Guild in New York ( 1886 ) . but the most celebrated were the Hull House in Chicago. founded by Jane Addams in 1889. and the Henry Street Settlement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. founded by Lillian Wald in 1893. College-educated middle-class adult females. who in consequence created the field of societal work. by and large ran the colony houses. As professionals. they were interested in garnering information on a broad scope of urban jobs. The information they collected helped convey about alterations in edifice codifications. improved wellness attention and mill safety. and highlighted the demand for new child labour Torahs.