Designed for educators by the teacher who nurtured and created the Freedom Writers, this standards-based teachers' guide includes innovative teaching techniques that will engage, empower, and enlighten. In response to thousands of letters and e-mails from teachers across the country who learned about Erin Gruwell and her amazing students in "The Freedom Writers Diary," Erin Gruwell and a team of teacher experts have written "The Freedom Writers Diary Teacher's Guide," a book that will encourage teachers and students to expand the walls of their classrooms and think outside the box. Here Gruwell goes in-depth and shares her unconventional but highly successful educational strategies and techniques (all 150 of her students who had been deemed "un-teachable" graduated from Wilson High School): from her very successful "toast for change" (an exercise in which Gruwell exhorted her students to leave the past behind and start fresh) to writing exercises that focus on the importance of journal writing, vocabulary, and more. In an easy-to-use format with black-and-white illustrations, this teachers' guide will become the essential go-to manual for teachers who want to make a difference in their pupils' lives and create students who will make a difference.