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

The Distinguished Scholars is the English class for Wilson High School’s high-achieving students, who are mostly white, and it is located across the hall from Ms. Gruwell’s class of “at-risk” students, who are almost entirely African American, Latino, and Asian. At the beginning of the book, some of the students in Ms. Gruwell’s class wish they could go across the hall to join the Distinguished Scholars. But by the end of their freshman year, students want to transfer out of Distinguished Scholars and join Ms. Gruwell’s class. One transfer student writes that the Distinguished Scholars teachers “have their noses in the air, as if they were above the rest of the school” (58).

As a motif, the Distinguished Scholars class underscores two of the book’s main themes: racial identity and tolerance and the power of literature and writing to create change. The academic separation of white students from African American, Latino, and Asian students acts as reminder that the racial segregation students experience outside school follows them into the classroom. As the students begin to connect with the literature taught in Ms. Gruwell’s class and view themselves differently, they become proud of their own work and no longer feel inferior to the Distinguished Scholars. The students’ changed perceptions toward themselves and the Distinguished Scholars upends the school’s hierarchy, and reveals one reason Ms. Gruwell’s fellow teachers might see Ms. Gruwell and her unconventional teaching methods as a threat.