When their struggles became stories, young writers became warriors.
Remember the 2007 movie, “Freedom Writers,” with Hilary Swank as California teacher Erin Gruwell, who transformed a class of students others had deemed “unteachable?”
The movie’s true story about Gruwell’s high school initiative that turned at-risk students into authors has grown into a global curriculum that trains teachers to transform students by introducing them to relevant reading material and the emotional release of writing.
Claire Schoonover, a Key West High School junior, last year was chosen as one of just 50 students worldwide to participate in the Freedom Writers program that produces a compilation book of the 50 students’ stories. Schoonover wrote and submitted a story about overcoming dyslexia and learning to adjust her thinking so she could read and write even while her brain and eyes conspired against her and rearranged words and numbers. She and her Key West English teacher, Kyla Shoemaker, spent the past 10 months writing and editing Schoonover’s piece, and returned this week from the Freedom Writers book release celebration in Los Angeles, California.
The Freedom Writers program is now a global movement and curriculum that trains teachers, provides scholarships and inspires students to engage in their surroundings and to share their stories of struggle, survival and success.
