Freedom Writers "Biographical Note" #2

Hiliary Swank

Hilary was discovered as a child by producer Suzy Sachs, who coached her in acting. When she was nine years old, she starred in her first play as "Mowgli" in "The Jungle Book". She began to appear regularly in local theater and school plays. She went to school in Bellingham, where she lived with her family, until she was 16. She competed in the Junior Olympics and Washington State championships in swimming; she ranked 5th in the state in all-around gymnastics (which would come in handy for starring in The Next Karate Kid (1994) years later). In 1990, Hilary and her mother moved to Los Angeles, where she enrolled in South Pasadena High School, and started acting professionally. She appeared in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) but The Next Karate Kid (1994), where she got the part competing against hundreds of other actresses, was her breakout role. Ever since then, she has been much in demand and has worked non-stop in movies. She won the Best Actress Oscar for Boys Don't Cry (1999). She starred in a few minor films before starring in Clint Eastwood's boxing drama Million Dollar Baby (2004) that won her a Golden Globe and a SAG Award, as well as her second Academy Award. She is two for two at the Oscars, a feat she shares only with a few other women. Off-screen, she married Chad Lowe on September 28, 1997. An aficionado for anything that involves the outdoors, she enjoys: sky diving, river rafting and skiing. In addition to the Oscar for her performance as "Brandon Teena" in Boys Don't Cry (1999), Hilary won the Golden Globe Award for "Best Actress in a Drama" and "Best Actress" prizes from The New York Film Critics, The Los Angeles Film Critics, The Chicago Film Critics and The Broadcast Film Critics Association. She earned $75 a day for Boys Don't Cry (1999).She also won the "Breakthrough Performance" prize from The National Board of Review.Hilary then appeared in supporting roles opposite Cate Blanchett and Keanu Reeves in Sam Raimi's The Gift (2000) and opposite Al Pacino and Robin Williams in Christopher Nolan's Insomnia (2002/I). Hilary then starred as "Alice Paul" in HBO's Iron Jawed Angels (2004) (TV), which told the story of the women's suffragette movement and she was honored with both SAG and Golden Globe nominations for her performance in this film.In 2004, Hilary starred opposite Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman as the title character in Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby (2004); the story of a young woman's quest to realize her dream of becoming a professional boxer. For this performance, she was honored with her second Academy Award for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role" and has garnered "Best Actress" prizes from the National Society of Film Critics, the Screen Actors Guild, The Broadcast Film Critics, and a Golden Globe for "Best Lead Actress in a Drama”. She was named one of "People" magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 2000, 2004 and 2005.She was last seen in a supporting role opposite Scarlett Johansson and Josh Hartnett in Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia (2006) and will next be seen starring in The Reaping (2007) for Warner Brothers. Hilary recently wrapped production on Freedom Writers (2007), the true story of Long Beach schoolteacher, Erin Gruwell. This fall, she will reunite with her Freedom Writers (2007) writer/director, Richard LaGravenese, to star in the film adaptation of Cecelia Ahern's novel, _P.S., I Love You (2008).

Biography for Hilary Swank. 1990-2009. 6 May 2009.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005476/bio

Freedom Writers "Precis" for Articles 3 & 4

ARTICLE 3

Lipka, Sara. “Eyes on the Past.” Chronicle of Higher Education 9 Feb 2007: A48-A48

The article discusses how students and administrators at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, organized a weekend trip to honor the civil-rights leaders who were part of the 1961 Freedom Rides. When Bernard LaFayette Jr. boarded a bus to Montgomery, Ala., 46 years ago, he did not store his suitcase underneath. Part of an early group of Freedom Riders, he was challenging Jim Crow laws and expected to meet violence and chaos. The least he could do to prepare, he says, was keep his suitcase with him. Just after sunrise on a Saturday late last month, four buses idle by the curb as passengers, black and white, gather on Vanderbilt Street. They place their luggage in the lower compartments and climb aboard, exchanging excited smiles as they take their seats--a freshman here, a chancellor there, and in the front row of each bus, one or two veterans of the 1961 Freedom Rides. By 8 o'clock, the Gray Lines are gently sloping south on Interstate 65. Mr. Arsenault has joined the trip, as has the Rev. James Lawson, whom Vanderbilt expelled from its divinity school in 1960 for leading nonviolence workshops to train civil-rights activists. Vanderbilt's chancellor, E. Gordon Gee, recognizes the university's shame: "Indeed we were isolated, indeed we were segregationist, and indeed we had penance to pay." Students and staff members from nearby American Baptist College and Fisk and Tennessee State Universities, including the presidents of the latter two, bring the roster to nearly 200.As the group travels to Birmingham, where the Freedom Riders were jailed, and Montgomery, where they were beaten by a mob, the veterans rotate among the buses, recounting the human details of civil-rights history. The students visited special places, monuments, and sites where the violence took place. Riding back to Nashville on Sunday evening, some students are still awestruck, describing the trip in unmatched terms: the most they have ever learned in a couple of days, the best experience they have had in college. Others count the hours of studying that await them. That is the risk, says Emily Prouty, a graduate student at Vanderbilt: "You disconnect, and the routine numbs you again."But maybe not this time. "Everybody I've talked to has recommitted to some cause in their life," Ms. Prouty says. "You pick what you care about, and you work on it."As the buses turn back onto Vanderbilt Street, students retrieve their luggage and disperse quickly into the chilly night. Some turn back and wave a second time.





ARTICLE 4

Winkler, Eugene. “Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice.” Rev. of Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, by Raymond Arsenault. Christian Century 8 Aug. 2006: 35-37

This article reviews the book, "Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice," by Raymond Arsenault.” The Freedom Riders have been through it all with their role in the Civil Rights Movement. Their role was explained wrongly in the movie Ladykillers. Tom hanks described them to a young black boy as, “a group of concerned northern liberals who came to Mississippi in 1964 "so that people like you could have the vote." The year was wrong and most of the riders to none were not northern liberals. Most of the freedom writers were black that came out of Nashville Movement that some important people had brought together. Even though they rode on buses, they have crossed the color line in public places, which later expanded to trains and airplanes, and neither the federal government nor the local authorities knew how to deal with the nonviolent frustration. A man named James Arsenault, delivered his day-to-day accounts of the rides. The rides began on May 4, 1961, when 13 activists climbed aboard buses in Washington with tickets for New Orleans. Their purpose was to challenge racial segregation in interstate travel, which the Supreme Court had declared an unconstitutional violation of human rights. Little trouble was encountered in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina. However, as their journey went further into the South, hostility increased and the brutal beatings began. They were given one warning from Martin Luther King when he met them in Georgia, “You will never make it through Alabama.” They made it through Birmingham, but some were severely beaten and arrested. On July 16, 1944, Irene Morgan, a black defense worker, boarded a crowded Greyhound bus in Virginia, and when she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger, she was hauled off to jail. Her case provided the NAACP the opportunity to begin to take apart the Jim Crow laws that incessantly humiliated African Americans. When the Supreme Court ruled in 1946 that the segregation of passengers violated the spirit of the Constitution's interstate commerce clause, a Journey of Reconciliation was organized by Bayard Rustin and George Houser of the Congress of Racial Equality. It became the model for the 1961 tides. The Freedom Riders prevailed against all odds. "Within six months of the first Ride," Arsenault writes, "travelers of all races were sitting side by side on buses and trains 'all across the nation without fear of arrest, the WHITE and COLORED signs that had blighted the walls of Southern bus and train stations for decades were gone, the nation's major civil tights organizations had undergone significant transformations, and the Justice Department had been pushed into a deepening engagement in civil tights matters."

Freedom Writers "Biographical Note"

Richard LaGravenese


Richard LaGravenese was born on October 30, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York. He is an American film writer and director. He graduated from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Experimental Theatre Program. As a student, he sharpens up his skills with dialogue and formed a New York- and Toronto-based comedy troupe, for which he also wrote sketches. After a disastrous turn on the icky 1989-generation gap "comedy" Rude Awakening, starring Cheech Marin and Louise Lasser, LaGravenese supplemented his (unrelated) day job by working on the script for what became The Fisher King (1991) a project reflecting his lifelong fascination with mythology. LaGravenese lost his best friend, Demme, to cocaine overdose. During this time, he took a couple of years off. He used this time to begin the script of Freedom Writers. This screenplay re-examines thematic territory covered previously by Stand and Deliver and Dangerous Minds, in its story of a determined teacher Hilary Swank who vows to teach her tough-as-nails students compassion and tolerance by introducing them to The Diary of Anne Frank and Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo. La Gravenese assumed directorial duties as well, and Paramount slated the picture for release in January 2007. Some of his best works include The Fisher King (1991), which he was the screenwriter. He directed a previous movie titled P.S I Love You in 2008. The film’s leading role, played by Hilary Swank, won Irish Film and Television Award for Best International Actress. The year before LaGravenese directed the film titled, “Freedom Writers”. LaGravenese was nominated and awarded for a list of movies. In 1992, he was nominated for an Academy Award for the movie, The Fisher King, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. In 1998, he received the Gotham Award for Best writer. In 2007, LaGravenese won the Humanitas Award for featured film, Freedom Writers. In 2008, he was nominated for the Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture (Theatrical or Television) for Freedom Writers. He currently resides in Manhattan, New York on Central Park West with his wife, Ann and daughter, Lily.





Richard LaGravenese. 25 April 2009 .
Richard LaGravenese Filmography. 25 April 2009 .

Freedom Writers "Precis" for Articles 1 & 2

Article 1
This article focuses on Sunday, May 14, 1961 – Mother’s Day. This was the day when angry white people blocked a Greyhound bus carrying black and white passengers through rural Alabama. The attackers pelted the vehicle with rocks and bricks, slashed tires, smashed windows with pipes and axes and lobbed a firebomb through a broken window. As smoke and flames filled the bus, the mob barricaded the door. "Burn them alive," somebody cried out. "Fry the goddamn niggers." An exploding fuel tank and warning shots from arriving state troopers forced the rabble back and allowed the riders to escape the inferno. Even then, some were pummeled with baseball bats as they fled. A few hours later, black and white passengers on a Trail ways bus were beaten bloody after they entered whites-only waiting rooms and restaurants at bus terminals in Birmingham and Anniston, Alabama. The bus passengers assaulted that day were Freedom Riders, among the first of more than 400 volunteers who traveled throughout the South on regularly scheduled buses for seven months in 1961 to test a 1960 Supreme Court decision that declared segregated facilities for interstate passengers illegal. The article discusses Eric Etheridge's own experiences with racial segregation and the day of the violent attacks on that day. This article is very much related to the movie, Freedom Writers. In the movie, if race boundary lines are crossed then the people who crossed them must suffer the repercussions which majority of the time can be fatal.



Holmes, Marian Smith. "The Freedom Riders." Smithsonian 39.6 (Feb. 2009): 70. MAS Ultra - School Edition. EBSCO. 26 Apr. 2009




Article 2
In this article, it discusses who were the freedom riders, how they started, and their struggle for justice. It includes a brief narrative from Raymond Arsenault. Freedom Riders were mostly college students and liberal clergy, both black and white. In 1961, they decided to force the United States government to live up to its promise of a desegregated society. Traveling through the Deep South by bus, they suffered injury and death by the Ku Klux Klan, they were jailed and beaten, but refused to give up. Raymond Arsenault's incredible narrative, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, vividly retells the story of these young civil rights pioneers. Even more fascinating is the inside story: Freedom Riders concerned about their place in history; friction between civil rights groups and their leaders; the efforts by the Kennedy administration to protect the riders' rights while at the same time attempting to convince them to give up the campaign; the incompetence of the FBI in bringing known Klan members to justice. The freedom riders were indispensable in moving the federal government to enforce civil rights laws that were so blatantly ignored by many southern states. The clash between southern governors waving the flag of state sovereignty and the U.S. government's obligation to protect the riders and enforce federal law powerfully illustrates the deep-seated cultural, political, and historical issues behind the events. This article is related to the movie, Freedom Writers because their teacher Erin Gruwell defied what administration wanted her students to learn, and she allowed them to take a stand and brought the different races of Room 203 together as one by making a difference.


Frey, Raymond. "Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice." Magill Book Reviews (Feb. 2007). MAS Ultra-School Edition. EBSCO. 26 Apr. 2009 .

Freedom Writers "Initial Reacton"

The freedom to do what you want, the freedom to do what you pleased…the freedom to write and express one’s own ideas all these facts will make life better. The Rodney King Riots also know as the nation worst outbreak of interracial gang warfare and the following of the O.J. Simpson Trial bought the city to uncomfortable moods. Long Beach had been the city that you should not send your children to the schools in the district. All the races of students had three things in common. They hated school, their teachers, and each other.

Freedom Writers is a 2007 movie based on the book, The Freedom Writers Diary. It is about a new integration program that puts students of all backgrounds and races in classes together. Erin Gruwell, a new teacher, attempts to teach the low rated students in the school. She makes a difference by bringing the students together. When I first saw the movie, I thought it would have been scary because of the situations that occurred. In the beginning of the film, it starts with clips from the Los Angeles Riots. My initial reaction was that the movie was going to talk about the situations that involved that. The students Gruwell receives are given the nickname “the unteachables”. They must be forced into class by security guards and are segregated into racial groups in the classroom. The tension is apparent every time students from one race look at those from another. Not only does she meet opposition from her students, she also has a hard time with her department head, who believes she should focus less on teaching her students to learn and read, and more on teaching them discipline and obedience.

I thought that Mrs. Gruwell was not going to be able to teach them because they were vulgar, insolent, and they could not get along with the people of the other races. If their territories were crossed, the person who crossed them would have to suffer cruel consequences from the other race. After the tragedies that took place, Mrs. Gruwell had to find a way to address the student’s issues. She thought that giving them The Diary of Anne Frank to read would help the students identify the same issues that Anne Frank had to face. In the book, Frank copes with her situations by writing. Gruwell thought that was a good idea for her students to apply. They began writing anonymous journal entries about the adversities that we faced in their every day lives. They wrote about gangs, immigration, drugs, violence, abuse, death, anorexia, dyslexia, teenage love, weight issues, divorce, suicide, and all the other issues they never had the chance to express before. It shows that in Room 203 was the place where the students could be themselves, cry, and laugh without being judged.

My first instant reaction to the scene when character Marcus Jefferson told Erin Gruwell that the students were in a war and they were not afraid to die, was that the war between the races occurred way before their time. This film received incredible reviews. Critics were stating that this movie was the real meaning of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Bibliography
Synopsis. 2006. 3 April 2009 http://www.freedomwriters.com/.

Writers, The Freedom. About The Freedom Writers. 2006. 3 April 2009 .

Tone Question

He's Really Cute....

There was a girl who was attracted to many boys and they were really cute.

Whenever she was around them she tried to keep her cool, but one stuck out the most because he was really cute.

One day she met a boy that was in an odd situation and he was really cute.

Day in and day out she would follow him so she could talk to him because he was really cute.

It takes a whole week for them to actually speak because she was shy and he was really cute.

They exchange random facts among each other because he was really cute.

They go on their first date and make something because he was really cute.

Finally things just gets better from there all because a friend helped her out because HE WAS REALLY CUTE.

Their Eyes Were Watching God Quote

“It was inevitable that she should accept any inconsistency and cruelty from her
deity as all good worshippers do from theirs. All gods who receive homage are
cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise, they would not be
worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most
divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half
gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.”

In this passage from Chapter 16, Hurston shapes out an exception to the gender dichotomy that she presents in the opening sentences of the novel. Mrs. Tuner is introduced. She has deep-seated beliefs about the superiority of the Caucasian race. She and Janie had seen one another throughout the season, but they have not come to know one another until the season ended. For the first time Janie faces prejudice and racism. Mrs. Turner only pursues a friendship with Janie because she has lighter skin than the rest of the migrant workers. She shares her strong beliefs with Janie as she tells her “Ah can’t stand black niggers . . . . Ah hates tuh see folks lak me and you mixed up wid ’em.” Ironically, Mrs. Turner’s life depends on black migrant workers support.
Mrs. Turner's worship of qualities that she will never possess groups her with the men whose ships “sail forever on the horizon.” What is most strange about the passage, though, is the understood comparison between Mrs. Turner and Janie. The “indiscriminate suffering” and “real blood” that may lead to wisdom could equally well belong to Janie. Janie's trip to the horizon requires her to suffer at the hands of two husbands, shoot her third, and brave a ferocious hurricane. Yet for Janie, suffering is not an end in itself. She endures it so that she may experience the fullness of life and the good that comes with the bad. Mrs. Turner, however, worships her false gods because they give her a sense of superiority over her peers and because, something of a masochist, she enjoys the pain that these gods dole out. When others mock her for her views, she feels like a victim and a martyr, a feeling she finds pleasurable. The narrator's stylized description, in the paragraph just below the above quote, of her wish for “an army, terrible with banners and swords,” illustrates the fantastic vengefulness and inflated sense of self-importance that Mrs. Turner's ostracism gives her. It is this pleasure in pain that motivates her to worship “gods who dispense suffering without reason.” Through “worship,” she hopes to “attain her paradise, a heaven of straight-haired, thin-lipped, high nose boned white seraphs.” Hurston uses Mrs. Turner as an example of intolerance in the novel.