Justin Gruwell You Will Never Be Nothing Analysis

Standard 2
Explicit evidence:

(Located throughout whole book) “You will never be nothing” is a something that students always repeated in their minds until they met Mrs. G. Books changed their lives. Education changed their lives. These students choose to create the life they wanted. They did this by pushing their paste behind including, chaos, suffering, and death. Mrs. Gruwell believed that those were not strong foundations for a good life. Instead these students lead their lives with sacrifices, commitment, courage, and confidence.

(Pg. 99) It was stated that Mrs. Gruwell created a “family bond of trust” in her classroom. An example of this is when Mrs. Gruwell discovers that her students were unaware of the Holocaust. She used that
For most of the existing teachers, integration has ruined the school. Most of the “smarter people” have been replaced with many students who will be lucky to graduate. She choose the school on purpose because of its integration program. But Erin is unprepared for what she got herself into. These students live by strict actions of protecting their own kind. Many are in gangs and almost all know somebody that has been killed by gang members/violence. The world they live in is so full of hate. Latinos hate the Cambodians, who hate the blacks, and so on. These students seem to hate Mrs. Gruwell more than anyone. When Erin holds a discussion about a recent drive-by shooting death she begins to understand what she's set herself up for. When she provides an assignment of writing a daily journal, and is not ready by Erin unless they choose to, then the students begin to open up to her. Erin tries harder and harder to have resources provided to teach in a way where they feel less divided from others. She ends up supporting her ideas herself. Later on their are people who agree/ disagree of her ideas. But despite all of that she still teaches her students how to succeed by helping think positive about their future. These journals really helped people share their stories instead of keeping everything on the inside. This made them feel happier all together. The “Line Game” is important because it shows the commonalities that Gruwell’s students were going through. The "Line Game" showed what they had passed through in their short lives. Students saw reasons to interact with each other because of their shared, common experiences. The "Line Game" gave Gruwell the inspiration to introduce the journal to her students. These students also realized that everyone is unique in their own way. This book had a lot of meaning and is inspiring to most