The document summarizes the struggles faced by students known as the Freedom Writers as depicted in their diary entries. It describes the gang violence and racism in their communities that negatively impacted their education by distracting them and making them fearful to seek help from others. It explains how the racial divisions and groups at their school prevented cross-racial cooperation and learning. The document concludes that for the Freedom Writers to succeed in school, they needed to overcome these obstacles, ask questions without fear, and find the right path through education to improve their lives.

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Jonathan Davila
Professor Dougherty
English 68
23 September 2010
Finding the Right Path
Everyday people are faced with difficult obstacles in their lives that
affect their education. In The Freedom Writers’ The Freedom Writers Diary,
we learn about the different struggles that each character faces in his/her life
such as racism, gang violence and struggling to succeed in school. Although
they have difficulties in their lives, they find ways of overcoming their
problems and realize that education is what they need to succeed in their lives.
They need to think about the life they are living now and forget about all the
problems going on around them.
The Freedom Writers are always being confronted with gang violence
in their communities and are always in danger of facing death. A lot of this
violence is because of racism and because gangsters enter into other people’s
territories to cause mayhem. Due to all the crime in their neighborhoods one
of the writers states, “I’ve lost many friends, friends who have died in an
undeclared war” (Freedom Writers 16). Based on this statement it can be
determined that the gang violence is the reason why so many people lose their
friends and loved ones. By seeing all this violence, the Freedom Writers must
always be on the lookout so they don’t get jumped. Joining these gangs is a
bad decision because they affect the way people see education by ruining their

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concentration. This problem is difficult to solve because many people have no
family, so they decide to turn to the gang life and then have trouble getting
back into the real world once they quit.
The struggles that these teens face affect their way of learning in
school. All the gang violence and racism that is brought up in their daily lives
makes them less likely to succeed in school. One of the Freedom Writers tells
us about the different racial groups there are in the school and says that,
“From what’s going on around me, it’s obvious that the divisions in the quad
carry into the classroom” (Freedom Writers 8). All the groups in the school
affect the way the students see each race by just thinking that they cannot be
part of them. Each group also demonstrates that they need to be rich or of a
certain race to even be in those groups. Seeing all the groups around campus,
the students probably think they will not be able to fit in with any group they
want. The groups formed at the school affect the way the Freedom Writers
learn in school because they are afraid to seek help from another student for
not being part of a group.
Throughout the different Diaries we can understand why the Freedom
Writers face such obstacles in their lives and in school. If they want to
succeed in school they need to stop being closed minded and be able to ask for
help from anyone. These Diaries teach us how difficult it was to live life back
then and that now we should take advantage of school and ask questions
whenever we are faced with a problem. The Freedom Writers give us the
opportunity to look at our lives now and imagine how they must have felt

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while attending school and not being to speak to anyone without being
jumped. It is important that we learn from them and realize that we are living
a great life right now and that nothing should get in our way of succeeding in
school. The Freedom Writers must find the right path to take or they will
never be able to move on with their lives to bigger and better things.
615 Words