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
When the Freedom Writers are at risk of being separated next year, this student feels that her/his life is falling apart. Her/his entire childhood has been completely uncontrolled, as her/his mother would send her/him away for days because she said she was tired of being a mother. The extreme freedom this student was given has resulted in a complete lack of guidance and sense of self-worth, as s/he has felt abandoned by her/his family. Alone and depressed, s/he feels that the Freedom Writers has been able to compensate for that sense of a lost family and provide her/him with people who actually care and listen. S/he feels that s/he could not afford losing a family again.
While some students suffer in their families because their lives are too controlled and they yearn to be free, this student suffers from the opposite problem: lack of parental engagement. Her/his attitude toward the Freedom Writers demonstrates that this group is not only important in school activities, but that it plays a crucial role in students’ private lives, giving them the emotional support they need to thrive in and outside of school.
Themes
