'Freedom Writers' teacher gives motivational lecture at USU

Before Long Beach public school teacher Erin Gruwell gave a lecture at Utah State University on Wednesday, she middle and high school students in the audience to stand so everyone could pay homage to them.

After hundreds of USU students, faculty and community members gave a standing ovation, Gruwell said she sees a little bit of her own students when she looks at the students from Cache Valleys school districts.

I could probably hold a mirror up, and the issues that face students even right here in Logan are very similar to what the Freedom Writers went through, even though you might not have gang violence and riots, Gruwell said.

The Freedom Writers a play on the civil rights activists the Freedom Riders was the pen name for Gruwells students at Woodrow Wilson High School, located in an area of Southern California riddled with strong gang and violence activity.

By having them write journal entries and share their troubled life experiences, Gruwells teaching style became a national success story. She graduated all of the students in her class and many of them went on to college. Soon, the story caught the attention of nightly newscasts; then it turned into a book, The Freedom Writers Diary, and later, a motion picture adaptation of the book starring actress Hillary Swank.

To capitalize on her successful curriculum, Gruwell founded the Freedom Writers Foundation, which trains and supports teachers of at-risk middle and high school students through a pedagogical framework patterned after her teachings.

At USU on Wednesday, Gruwell announced that a scholarship from the Freedom Writers Foundation had been awarded to Emmie Staker, an English and ESL teacher at Mountain Crest High School.

Staker was one of 5,000 nationwide who applied for the scholarship and now will have a chance to join Gruwell in Long Beach to receive teacher training.

I just started screaming, Staker said in an interview after the lecture, when she learned she had won the scholarship at a USU dinner earlier in the evening with Gruwell. Many of Stakers students also attended Wednesdays lecture.

Gruwells hour-long talk touched on her decision to become a teacher and the evolution of her curriculum. Gruwell peppered her lecture with stories of her students and where they came from.

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'Freedom Writers' teacher gives motivational lecture at USU