Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Freedom Writers Diary, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Race, Ethnicity, and Tolerance
Education and Healing
Family and Home
Violence, War, and Death
Summary
Analysis
This student has just recently transferred into Ms. Gruwell’s class and feels intimidated by the other students’ writing skills. Ms. Gruwell asks for students to pick their favorite diary entries so that they can be arranged into a book, but this student finds her/his most significant memory—the death of his/her brother nine months ago—too painful to write, and decides that s/he would rather not remember it.
While some students find comfort in writing, this student is not yet ready to confront his/her most difficult moments. Given the student’s recent entry in the class, it is possible that s/he has not yet discovered that sharing emotions and personal experiences is an integral part of Ms. Gruwell’s teaching, where it happens in a safe, non-judgmental space.
Themes
