Erin Gruwell

Background

Erin Gruwell was born on August 15, 1969, in Glendora, California, and grew up in La Verne and Newport Beach. Her father, Stephen Douglas Gruwell, was a baseball scout for the Anaheim Angels, and her mother was Sandra Faye Alley. Her parents divorced while she was young.

Gruwell attended Bonita High School in La Verne before studying at the University of California, Irvine. Her California upbringing and university education preceded a career focused on English teaching, writing, and educational reform.

Education

Gruwell graduated from Bonita High School in La Verne, California. She then studied English at the University of California, Irvine, a public research university founded in 1965 that became part of the University of California system's expansion in Southern California.

She continued at California State University, Long Beach, where she earned a secondary teaching credential in 1993 and a master's degree in English in 1994. California State University, Long Beach developed as an urban public university serving the diverse communities of the Los Angeles region, and its College of Education prepared teachers for local schools and wider educational service.

Career

Gruwell began teaching English at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California, in 1994. Her first classes included students who had been identified as low-performing and difficult to educate. She introduced literature connected with intolerance, war, civil rights, and personal testimony, including the diary of Anne Frank and writings by Zlata Filipović, and asked students to keep journals and share their experiences.

The students' journals became the basis of The Freedom Writers Diary, published in 1999 by the Freedom Writers and Gruwell. All 150 students in the original group graduated from Wilson High School in 1998, and many later attended college. Their experiences also inspired the 2007 feature film Freedom Writers, starring Hilary Swank as Gruwell.

After leaving Wilson High School, Gruwell served as a Distinguished Teacher in Residence at California State University, Long Beach and taught prospective educators. She founded the Freedom Writers Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides teacher training, curriculum, outreach, and scholarships. The foundation extends the classroom methods developed in Room 203 through programs that encourage educators to use writing and relevant literature to support literacy, inclusion, and student engagement.

Gruwell has also worked as an author, public speaker, and education activist. Through the foundation and related programs, she has collaborated with teachers and students internationally, including through Scholastic's On the Record reading and writing program.

Achievements

• Gruwell developed a writing-centered teaching method at Woodrow Wilson High School that helped all 150 students in her original Freedom Writers group graduate in 1998; many of the students later attended college.

• She founded the Freedom Writers Foundation, which trains educators and provides curriculum, outreach, and scholarship programs designed to extend the Freedom Writers approach to schools beyond Long Beach.

• Gruwell collaborated with Scholastic on On the Record, a reading and writing program based in part on classroom strategies associated with the Freedom Writers method.

Works

More photos

• correspondence collection

  • Dear Freedom Writer

    (The Freedom Writers and Gruwell respond to letters from a...)

    2022

• education book

  • Teaching Hope

    (Written by the Freedom Writer Teachers and Gruwell, this ...)

    2009

• memoir

  • Teach with Your Heart: Lessons I Learned from the Freedom Writers

    (Gruwell's memoir extends the story of the Freedom Writers...)

    2007

• nonfiction book

  • The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them

    (Co-authored by the Freedom Writers and Gruwell, this book...)

    1999

• teacher's guide

  • The Freedom Writers Diary Teacher's Guide

    (Gruwell and the Freedom Writers developed this guide to e...)

    2007

Views

Gruwell's educational philosophy centers on the belief that students should be treated as individuals whose experiences and voices belong in the classroom. Her teaching method uses personal writing, relevant literature, historical testimony, and dialogue to challenge prejudice and encourage students to reconsider assumptions about themselves and others.

Her work also treats literacy as a means of agency. In the Freedom Writers tradition, writing is not limited to a school exercise; it provides students with a way to interpret adversity, communicate across social divisions, and imagine educational and personal futures.

Personality

Gruwell has publicly presented education as a practice grounded in inclusion, empathy, persistence, and respect for students' individual experiences. Her teaching and writing emphasize listening to students, inviting them to record their own lives, and connecting literature with social questions.

Interests

• Gruwell has a documented interest in literacy education, teacher development, student writing, educational inclusion, and public speaking.

• Writers

  Anne Frank and Zlata Filipović are documented literary influences in Gruwell's teaching work. Her curriculum also drew on writings associated with Holocaust testimony, civil-rights history, and literature about young people facing violence and discrimination.

Connections

Gruwell's professional and creative work is closely connected with the students known as the Freedom Writers. The students co-authored The Freedom Writers Diary with her, later contributed to related educational projects, and helped establish the Freedom Writers Foundation to extend the methods developed in their classroom.

Her father, Stephen Douglas Gruwell, worked as a baseball scout for the Anaheim Angels. Her mother was Sandra Faye Alley, and her parents divorced during Gruwell's childhood.

Father:

Stephen Douglas Gruwell

He was a baseball scout for the Anaheim Angels and died in 2003 in West Covina, California.

Mother:

Sandra Faye Alley

References

• California State University, Long Beach: Erin J. Gruwell Distinguished Alumna Profile Documents Gruwell's education at California State University, Long Beach, her teaching at Wilson High School, the Freedom Writers, and the Erin Gruwell Education Project.
  2005
• Freedom Writers Foundation: About Describes Gruwell's classroom work, the Freedom Writers' graduation and publications, the foundation's educational programs, and the continuing development of the Freedom Writers method.
• Penguin Random House: Erin Gruwell Provides a publisher biography and lists Gruwell's books, including The Freedom Writers Diary, Teach with Your Heart, Teaching Hope, The Freedom Writers Diary Teacher's Guide, and Dear Freedom Writer.