How a teacher and 150 teens used writing to chnge themselves and the world around them</br></br>Product Description</br></br><b>#1 <i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER & NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE<br><br>Straight from the front line of urban America the inspiring story of one fiercely determined teacher and her remarkable students.<br></b><br>As an idealistic twenty-three-year-old English teacher at Wilson High School in Long beach California Erin Gruwell confronted a room of unteachable at-risk students. One day she intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaustonly to be met by uncomprehending looks. So she and her students using the treasured books <i>Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl</i> and <i>Zlatas Diary: A Childs Life in Sarajevo</i> as their guides undertook a life-changing eye-opening spirit-raising odyssey against intolerance and misunderstanding. They learned to see the parallels in these books to their own lives recording their thoughts and feelings in diaries and dubbing themselves the Freedom Writers in homage to the civil rights activists The Freedom Riders.<br><br>With funds raised by a Read-a-thon for Tolerance they arranged for Miep Gies?? the courageous Dutch woman who sheltered the Frank family?? to visit them in California?? where she declared that Erin Gruwell??s students were ??the real heroes.?? Their efforts have paid off spectacularly?? both in terms of recognition?appearances on ??Prime Time Live?? and ??All Things Considered???? coverage in <i>People</i> magazine?? a meeting with U.S.