Freshman Reading 2008
Announcing Our Reading
The University of Northern Colorado is pleased to announce the selection of its 2008-09 Freshman Common Reading. The campus has selected The Freedom Writers Diary: How A Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them, by Erin Gruwell.
About the Book
Ms. Gruwell, a 23-year-old teacher teaching “at-risk,” “unteachable” students in a racially divided inner-city neighborhood, tapped into the power of literature and writing to lead her students on a truly life-changing journey. Through their own reading, reflection, and writing, these young men and women were empowered to move beyond misconceptions about themselves and those around them, and into a transformed and transformative engagement with their world.
The book is a collection of 142 diary entries written by the students. For those unfamiliar with the reality of urban youth in 21st-century America, many of these entries will be jarring, even shocking, as they touch on the harsh and often bleak circumstances that entrapped the writers—gangs, drugs, violence—and the attitudes that in their way also held the writers captive. But equally impressive is the clear change that emerges as these young diarists begin to connect their realities to the broader human truths found in such works as the Diary of Anne Frank.
The Book On Campus
At the University of Northern Colorado we often speak of the power of education to transform lives. We can think of no better introduction to this notion of transformation than a reading of the Freedom Writers Diary.
All incoming freshmen will receive, free of charge, a copy of the book at New Student Orientation. During our “First Four Days” welcome activities (August 21-24), we will hear directly from Maria Reyes, one of the Freedom Writers, at our University Convocation. Other activities and themes about the book, both inside and outside the classroom, will be woven into the first-year experience of our students.