THE UNIVERSITY OF GOROKA

P.O.BOX 1078, GOROKA, Eastern Highlands Province

Papua New Guinea
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
DIVISION OF TEACHING & LEARNING
EDY 3310 – ASSIGNMENT TASK #1
SEMESTER 2-2022
NAME: Martias WAMBI
STUDENT ID NO: 2020311316
PROGRAM: Bachelor of Science Education - PHYSICS
COURSE COORDINATOR: Mr. John Hagoya
TUTOR: Mr. KOMA
DUE DATE: 22nd AUGUST 2022,Might Night
 Freedom writers

Teaching strategies are one of the things that become a concern for teachers to achieve
teaching goals in their classrooms. Teachers are required to be creative and enrich knowledge
of teaching methods or strategies from various sources, including film. Freedom Writers is
one of the films that can be a source of learning primarily related to teaching strategies. This
study aims at identifying and analysing teaching strategies performed in the Freedom Writers
film. The film, Freedom Writers, directed by Richard LaGravenese captured the lives of
underrepresented and at risk students whom lived in Long Beach, California, that were born
into gang life and did not see their lives past than age eighteen. Erin Gruwell was a passionate
young teacher keen on social change. Wanting to make a difference, she decided to teach at
the newly voluntarily integrated Woodrow Wilson High School. The movie’s portrayal of
stereotypes was emphasized through its technical aspects, the recurring themes of segregation
and racial profiling, and the characterizations of individuals, while at the same time, the
humour in the film was able to keep it light-hearted and enjoyable for the audience.

I was so excited about the Mrs Erin Gruwell’s teaching methods that she used. The method
she created is not only to boost students’ academic fulfilment, but also foster students’ self-
values, confidence, cultural and racial diversity. She followed a student-cantered learning model
based on “internal motivation”. She supported “internal motivation” by listening to their voices,
engaging interests, encouraging them to ask questions, and developing their problem-solving
skills flexibly. Students are internally motivated in a sense of the classroom, feeling like they are
in their home.

In Gruwell’s teaching practice throughout her young life, she captured the hearts of her
students and won their trust. I appreciate her teaching techniques because she promoted
tolerance and cheered the students up by thinking and rethinking critically about their own
beliefs and considering their everyday decision, and planning their futures. She transformed
her students’ lives turned out from a dark side into a positive side. She had a big plans for
how she was going to get the students to line up outside the classroom door, instead of not
showing up to class or quit before the first semester was finished.

The students comes from many different societies. In room 203 there are blacks, whites,
Latinos and Cambodians. For many of these kids, death, violence, gangs, and fighting for
territories, are daily events. They come from broken families and have had a very difficult
and challenging childhood. They are happy if they make it to the end of the day. One of the
students, Eva, said to Ms Gruwell during class; “what are you doing in here that makes a god
damn difference to my life?” This wakes Ms Gruwell up, and she starts to use unusual
methods like playing games, bring the students on trips, and make them write diaries to try to
teach, and to help them with their lives and their chance to graduate high school and go to
college. The title of the movie and the book are based on these diaries.

I saw Marcus is a black boy, and one of the persons we get to know most about. He seems
like a very nice boy, but he also has his dark secrets. Marcus changes his personality and his
way of living a lot because he wants to move back home to his mother. Sindy is a Cambodian
girl. She was involved in the main conflicts in the movie. She has been in a refugee camp,
and after the war in Cambodia her father is not the same anymore. Her character shows no
fear and an admirable willpower.

The main theme of the movie “Freedom Writers” was about the prevalence of racism in
public school and breaking away from the stereotypes. In the beginning of the movie, the
students that were in Mrs. Gruwell’s class were clearly segregated from each other and
isolated themselves into cliques. Gang wars were a part of their daily lives. The wars
stemmed from older generations teaching and portraying that violence and hatred was
normal. This film’s social relevance pertains to today. Although as a society we have
improved, racial tension and gang violence still exist in public schools, but it is important to
recognize that those students are not hopeless causes.

From my library researched, there is sufficient research evidence argue that institutional
commitment is associated with behaviours that advance organizational efficiency (Mowday,
1982). A committed teacher has strong psychological ties to the school, students and
knowledge of subject area, and committed teachers make a difference to the learning and the
lives of the students. Commitment to education requires three provisions: (presupposes)
having faith in making a difference in education, students’ expectations in learning,
willingness of establishing an effective learning environment (Balay, 2000). Education
researchers list some characteristics of teachers for their organizations as (Balky, 1993, p.56)

At the beginning of the film, most of the students hate any of their classmates who are of a
different race. However, they are quite ignorant about their backgrounds. For example, one of
the Cambodian girls was once in a refugee camp. It may be that other students in her group
didn’t know where she was from or the kind of journey that she and her family would have
made to come to the US, or the reasons behind this kind of decision to leave Cambodia in the
first place. From my observation and findings, students were unable to listen. I dislike their
behaviour towards Mrs Gruwell.
LaGravenese also used lighting to help emphasize the racial divide. At the beginning of the
movie, the scenes are very dark. As the movie progressed and Mrs. Gruwell began to tear
down the racial divide, her classroom became lighter. She always had the blinds open and
flowers scattered around the room to emphasize peace and tranquillity. The choice of
background music for the film subtly helped to show how the racial divide in Mrs. Gruwell’s
classroom was eventually broken. At the beginning of the film, music by Tupac that talked
about violence, suffering, and living in poverty was played.

By the end of the movie, I saw LaGravenese played some of Tupac’s music about hope,
wealth, and prosperity. This music was played once Mrs. Gruwell had finally torn down the
racial divide between the different ethnicities. The film captures the viewpoints of several
students in the classroom, each fighting their own personal battle all the while capturing the
relationship that is being formed between each other. With determination and passion brought
by Ms. Gruwell, the students are focused on the phrase “Toast for Change,” and being a hero
although just an ordinary teenager.

The film’s value is to open the eyes of the audience to understand their surroundings and
realize that there is much opportunity for one to make a difference just as Ms. Gruwell did as
a teacher and just as her students did in each other’s lives. To conclude, Freedom Writer’s
wonderfully portrayed how a group of students, with the help of their teacher, were able to
drop their previous stereotypes and hatred of each other to live peacefully. This hatred was
derived from generations of gang wars based on ethnicity, and although each teen fought for
their people, they had their own personal battles as well.

After identifying and analysing the movie, this review comes to some conclusions. There
were 11 (eleven) different strategies which Ms. Gruwell uses in her teaching; the use of song,
switching or changing students’ seating position, error recognition or correction, the line
game, journal writing, reading motivation, field trip, toast for change, class discussion or
debate, watching documentary film, and cooperative writing learning. Although some of
these strategies are not succeed in the movie, it is still considered to be effective and
applicable in teaching-learning process. Thus, teaching strategies in this movie can be a
reference for the teacher in pursuit being an effective educator in the future.
REFERENCES

Brown, J. (2008). Student-centered instruction: Involving students in their own

education. Music Educators Journal, 94 (5), 30-35.

Chen, P.C. (2015). Teaking Erin Gruwell in “The Freedom Writers Diary” as a
Role Model. (Accessed on April 14th, 2016).

Conti, G. J. (2004). Identifying your teaching style. In M. W. Galbraith (Ed.),

Adult learning methods (3rded.) (pp. 75-91). Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing
Company.

Gruwell, E. (2008). The Freedom Writers’ Diary: Teacher’s Guide. New York:
Broadway Books.

Jacobs, G.M., Power, M.A., & Loh, W.I. (2002). The Teacher’s Soucebook for
Cooperative Learning: Practical Techniques, Basic Principles, and Frequently
Asked Questions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

McKeachie, W. J., & Svinicki, M. D. (2006). McKeachie’s Teaching Tips:

Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers (12th
ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.