# The Freedom Writers Diary
*The Freedom Writers Diary* is a 1999 nonfiction book in which 150 students of [Long Beach, California](https://www.edgepedia.org/long-beach-california), teacher [Erin Gruwell](https://www.edgepedia.org/erin-gruwell) record their lives in diary entries, interspersed with narrative text by Gruwell, under the subtitle *How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them*.[1](https://penguinrandomhouseelementaryeducation.com/book/?isbn=9780385494229) It grew out of one classroom at Woodrow Wilson High School, became a New York Times bestseller, and was later adapted into the 2007 feature film *Freedom Writers* starring [Hilary Swank](https://www.edgepedia.org/hilary-swank).[2](https://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/about/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full title | *The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them*[1](https://penguinrandomhouseelementaryeducation.com/book/?isbn=9780385494229) |
| Publication | October 12, 1999; 448 pages (20th anniversary edition); ISBN 9780385494229; Crown/Broadway Books[1](https://penguinrandomhouseelementaryeducation.com/book/?isbn=9780385494229) |
| Authors | The Freedom Writers (150 students) with Erin Gruwell[1](https://penguinrandomhouseelementaryeducation.com/book/?isbn=9780385494229) |
| Origin | Gruwell began student teaching at Wilson High School in Long Beach, California, in 1994, teaching a remedial freshman English class labeled "unteachable"[3](https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/freedom-writers-stories-heart/how-california-teacher-erin-gruwell-inspired-a-generation-of-writers) |
| Outcome of the class | All 150 students graduated in 1998[2](https://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/about/) |
| Sales and reach | More than one million copies sold; translated into over a dozen languages[4](https://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/curriculum/) |
| Film adaptation | *Freedom Writers* (2007), Paramount Pictures, written and directed by Richard LaGravenese, starring two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank[5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/freedom-writers/) • [2](https://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/about/) |
## Origins in Room 203
In 1994 Erin Gruwell, a first-year teacher fresh out of graduate school, was assigned to teach freshman English at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach.[3](https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/freedom-writers-stories-heart/how-california-teacher-erin-gruwell-inspired-a-generation-of-writers) She described the school, on paper, as a diverse microcosm of every race and economic level, but found that internal tracking and busing created deep separation; she was given the students nobody else wanted, including those with learning disabilities and trouble with the law.[3](https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/freedom-writers-stories-heart/how-california-teacher-erin-gruwell-inspired-a-generation-of-writers) The Freedom Writers Foundation dates the setting to a racially divided Long Beach still marked by gang warfare and homicides in the years after the 1992 Los Angeles riots.[2](https://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/about/)
The turning point came when Gruwell intercepted a note carrying a racist caricature of a classmate and told her students that this kind of imagery was comparable to the propaganda that had led to the Holocaust; only one student had heard of it.[6](https://assets.penguinrandomhouse.com/book-resumes/GruwellErin_FreedomWritersDiary_20240718.pdf) • [3](https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/freedom-writers-stories-heart/how-california-teacher-erin-gruwell-inspired-a-generation-of-writers) She rebuilt her curriculum around books such as *The Diary of Anne Frank* and *Zlata's Diary*, Zlata Filipovic's account of a child's life in besieged Sarajevo, and had the students keep journals about their own experiences.[3](https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/freedom-writers-stories-heart/how-california-teacher-erin-gruwell-inspired-a-generation-of-writers) The class also invited speakers, most famously [Miep Gies](https://www.edgepedia.org/miep-gies), the Dutch woman who had hidden [Anne Frank](https://www.edgepedia.org/anne-frank) from the Nazis.[3](https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/freedom-writers-stories-heart/how-california-teacher-erin-gruwell-inspired-a-generation-of-writers)
The students named themselves the [Freedom Writers](https://www.edgepedia.org/freedom-writers) in homage to the [Freedom Riders](https://www.edgepedia.org/freedom-riders) of the civil rights movement.[2](https://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/about/) Over four years the 150 students who passed through the class all graduated in 1998, and their collected diaries became the book.[2](https://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/about/)
## Structure and voice
The book is not a single memoir but a collective one. It consists of entries from the students' own diaries arranged as numbered entries, with a narrative thread written by Gruwell; the first printing ran 281 pages, published by Doubleday at $12.95 in October 1999.[1](https://penguinrandomhouseelementaryeducation.com/book/?isbn=9780385494229) • [7](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-06-cl-19201-story.html) The diary form places the book in direct conversation with [Anne Frank's diary](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-diary-of-a-young-girl), which Gruwell had used in class not as a distant historical artifact but as a model for how ordinary people document extraordinary circumstances.[8](https://forbiddenbookshop.com/book/the-freedom-writers-diary/) A scholarly analysis from UC Berkeley reads the diary as focusing on narrative itself as the primary means by which the students constitute their own subjectivity.[9](https://escholarship.org/content/qt3h55n6j2/qt3h55n6j2.pdf)
Proceeds from the book went to the Tolerance Education Foundation, an organization set up to pay for the Freedom Writers' college tuition.[1](https://penguinrandomhouseelementaryeducation.com/book/?isbn=9780385494229) During their senior year the students traveled to New York City, where they received the Spirit of Anne Frank Award.[10](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-feb-13-me-64039-story.html)
## Reception and adaptation
The book became a New York Times bestseller and has since sold more than one million copies in over a dozen languages.[2](https://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/about/) • [4](https://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/curriculum/) [Paramount Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/paramount-pictures) released *Freedom Writers* in 2007, written and directed by Richard LaGravenese and starring Hilary Swank as Gruwell, alongside a cast of largely unknown young actors.[5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/freedom-writers/) • [11](https://www.christianitytoday.com/2007/01/freedomwriters/) Critics were divided on the film's reliance on the familiar dedicated-teacher formula even while praising Swank's performance; its Metascore was 64 based on 29 critic reviews, and the Toledo Blade called it a mostly faithful adaptation of the diary, singling out the real-life meeting with Miep Gies as the story's emotional centerpiece.[5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/freedom-writers/) • [12](https://www.toledoblade.com/A-E/Movies/2007/01/05/Movie-review-Freedom-Writers/stories/) A 20th anniversary edition published in 2019 by Broadway Books added updates on the writers' lives and new journal entries.[6](https://assets.penguinrandomhouse.com/book-resumes/GruwellErin_FreedomWritersDiary_20240718.pdf)
## Classroom use and censorship challenges
The diary is widely used in secondary classrooms; the National Council of Teachers of English lists it for grades 9 through 12, and a companion *Teacher's Guide* shares Gruwell's classroom strategies, including the "toast for change" exercise and journal-writing techniques.[13](https://ncte.org/blog/rationale/the-freedom-writers-diary/) • [4](https://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/curriculum/) The same frankness that gives the book its voice has drawn repeated challenges: it was challenged in Howell, Michigan, in 2007, removed from an [Indianapolis](https://www.edgepedia.org/indianapolis) classroom in 2008 in a case the National Coalition Against Censorship called lacking any legitimate pedagogical justification, and in 2024 the [Horry County](https://www.edgepedia.org/horry-county), South Carolina, school board deemed it age-inappropriate while it appeared among more than 1,600 books removed in Escambia County, Florida.[6](https://assets.penguinrandomhouse.com/book-resumes/GruwellErin_FreedomWritersDiary_20240718.pdf) Defenders argue that the rawness of the entries is precisely what preserves the documentary honesty that made the project meaningful to the students who wrote them.[8](https://forbiddenbookshop.com/book/the-freedom-writers-diary/)
## Legacy
Gruwell left classroom teaching after a few years and founded the Freedom Writers Foundation, which trains teachers through a five-day intensive institute and, as of 2019, counted 700 trained "Freedom Writer Teachers."[14](https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/reviews-freedom-writers-white-teacher-to-the-rescue/) • [3](https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/freedom-writers-stories-heart/how-california-teacher-erin-gruwell-inspired-a-generation-of-writers) The book's success also produced follow-up works, including *Dear Freedom Writer* (2022), in which today's students write letters to the original Freedom Writers and receive letters of advice in return.[4](https://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/curriculum/) Many of the original 150 went on to college and careers, and many still work with the foundation as speakers on homelessness, addiction recovery, bullying, and storytelling as a means of overcoming adversity.[2](https://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/about/)
## References
1. [The Freedom Writers Diary (20th Anniversary Edition), Penguin Random House](https://penguinrandomhouseelementaryeducation.com/book/?isbn=9780385494229)
2. [Our Story, Freedom Writers Foundation](https://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/about/)
3. [How California Teacher Erin Gruwell Inspired a Generation of Writers, PBS SoCal](https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/freedom-writers-stories-heart/how-california-teacher-erin-gruwell-inspired-a-generation-of-writers)
4. [Curriculum, Freedom Writers Foundation](https://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/curriculum/)
5. [Freedom Writers Reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/freedom-writers/)
6. [Book Resume: The Freedom Writers Diary, Penguin Random House](https://assets.penguinrandomhouse.com/book-resumes/GruwellErin_FreedomWritersDiary_20240718.pdf)
7. [Students Find That Their Words Are Their Bond, Los Angeles Times (1999)](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-06-cl-19201-story.html)
8. [The Freedom Writers Diary, Forbidden Bookshop](https://forbiddenbookshop.com/book/the-freedom-writers-diary/)
9. [Narrating Subjects in The Freedom Writers Diary, UC eScholarship](https://escholarship.org/content/qt3h55n6j2/qt3h55n6j2.pdf)
10. [On Road to Unity With Freedom Writers, Los Angeles Times (2000)](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-feb-13-me-64039-story.html)
11. [Freedom Writers review, Christianity Today (2007)](https://www.christianitytoday.com/2007/01/freedomwriters/)
12. [Movie review: Freedom Writers, The Blade (2007)](https://www.toledoblade.com/A-E/Movies/2007/01/05/Movie-review-Freedom-Writers/stories/)
13. [The Freedom Writers Diary, National Council of Teachers of English](https://ncte.org/blog/rationale/the-freedom-writers-diary/)
14. [Reviews: Freedom Writers, White Teacher to the Rescue, Rethinking Schools](https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/reviews-freedom-writers-white-teacher-to-the-rescue/)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Literature and written works*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license