She provides them each with journals to write in every day with various things pertaining to their lives, promising she won't read them unless they allow her to. She then asks if any have ever been shot at, and everyone, save for Ben, raises their hand.ĭespite adversity from her pessimistic superior Margaret Campbell, Erin once again attempts to connect with the students through a game where they step onto a line if the question asked elicits a "yes" from them, and most of them are met with a majority stepping forward, with all of them having lost at least one person to gang violence. Finally, after much tearful back and forth, the student who drew the cartoon, Tito, raises his hand and admits he doesn't know what the Holocaust is, and Erin realizes almost none of them, except for Ben, a white student. The students chastise Erin and express contempt for her because she's white. Genuinely disgusted, Erin then compares the drawing to another of "the Jew" from the Nazi Germany era, and that such dehumanization is what caused the Holocaust and what could start another.
In class, the students pass around a note, many of them laughing until black student Jamal receives it, where Erin picks it up to reveal it's an incredibly racist caricature of a black person. Erin attempts to introduce the kids to poetry, but they discredit her as a teacher and continue to cause conflict between each other, with Erin constantly needing to request help from the resource officer, who has to herd them back into class like sheep.Īt a teacher's conference, the principal informs them all of a recent shooting and murder involving Wilson High students, one of them being Eva, who was witness to the shooting and would have to testify. She remains determined despite this, as well as subtle suggestions from her coworkers that her students aren't worth it. Erin faces adversity outside of her work as well, as her father is discontented with her occupation and claims she's wasting her talents. Unfortunately, outside the class, a school riot has started and the students all pour out into it, leaving Erin concerned and disheartened. The next day, indifference and racial tension among the students still remain present but with less violence. On her very first day, she walks into the school with confidence and an optimistic grin, but quickly finds her students, who are classified as being "at-risk", to be very difficult, with many of them being indifferent to her, and two even start a fight in the class, and the stress of the job begins weighing on Erin already, but she remains hopeful that she can change their attitudes. Erin Gruwell is a new teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School, and chose it specifically because of the voluntary integration, since whereas most see it as a stain on the school's reputation, Erin sees it as an opportunity to truly educate and inspire the troubled children.
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