Chapters 6-10

The second semester of Erin Gruwell’s teaching career was extremely busy. She started off by taking her students to a showing of Schindler’s List at a theater in Newport Beach, which is a far cry from the neighborhoods where her students live. Erin planned the whole field trip by getting her family and friends to drive the students to the theater, and she even paid for the movie tickets. People in Newport Beach were looking the students up and down, worried that they had a gun in their pockets or something. The stares and assumptions became so obvious that all of the students felt uncomfortable. After the trip, a newspaper article was written about how poorly the class was treated in Newport Beach. Erin even received threatening phone class from people in her neighborhood because of it. Later in the semester the class was able to attend a symposium presentation by the author of Schindler’s List, Thomas Keneally, and after the meeting, Keneally suggested that Erin present the story of her class to Stephen Spielberg. With much deliberation Erin finally sent a letter describing her class as “a colorful box of Crayola crayons” (p. 57). Spielberg loved the class’s story so much he provided buses, tickets to Universal Studios, and a private meeting with him for all of Erin’s students.

Erin has accomplished so much with her class already and the first year isn’t even over yet. I think the students must be so excited to finally have a teacher who cares about them. I can’t believe the community in Newport Beach treated the students as horribly as they did, but I think the newspaper article was an important addition to the story of Erin’s class. I am surprised that The Freedom Writer’s Diary did not cover the part about Keneally or Spielberg. These are some important people that Erin has been able to meet early in her career.