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Part VIII: Diary 130
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Freedom Writers Diary, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Race, Ethnicity, and Tolerance
Education and Healing
Family and Home
Violence, War, and Death
Summary
Analysis
This student has just received a full scholarship to play football at college. While he always dreamed of playing football, when he was twelve he became addicted to drugs, which kept him from performing well in football and at school. He tried more and more drugs until he joined Ms. Gruwell’s class, which gave him motivation and made him feel that he had potential. After working hard at school, he now looks forward to going to college and starting his football career.
This student’s self-destructive habit of consuming drugs was, it seems, strongly influenced by his environment, which did not give him a sense of self-confidence. By contrast, the motivation he felt in Ms. Gruwell’s class was soon sufficient to make him stop taking drugs and work hard. This demonstrates that ambition and self-respect can be deeply positive forces impacting one’s behavior.
Themes
