Freedom Writers Sociology

The movie I will reference for this assignment is Freedom Writers. Freedom Writers was directed by Richard LaGravenese, and release January 2007. Many of the concepts that we discussed in class could be seen throughout this film. I would have to say that the most prevalent theories were constructivism, social cognitive, and motivation. We discussed that a successful classroom will incorporate more than one theory, I believed that Ms. Gruwell implementation of more than one theory helped with her success. Information Processing is one theory displayed in this film. One of the key components of this theory is attention. We learned that one of the most effective ways of catching the students’ attention is to make the information relevant. Her

Gruwell gets a better understanding of her students’ life style she works to make the work relevant to them. This can first be seen when she uses the picture drawn of Jamal, not only as a way to let students what will/will not be tolerated in her class, but also as a learning experience. She used this incident as a “bridge” to connect the situation with the Holocaust. She explains how similar images were drawn of Jews. In addition, she referred to the Nazis as a “the most famous gang in history.” This reference caught the students’ attention, due to majority of them being somewhat affiliated with gang activity. The events of the Holocaust became one of the central topics discussed in this class. I would argue that the students were able to better process the information, due to Ms. Gruwell catching their attention by using a random incident (drawing of Jamal) as a teaching moment and making the lesson relevant to her students. This too can lead to the students being better able to memorize the information, which is another component of this

Two of the theory’s key concepts stood out most: modeling and self-efficacy. In the text we learn about Bandura’s three key functions of modeling, I found these functions obvious in the films. First, response facilitations, which is the idea of “going along with the crowd.” Behaviors of one group of peers often prompt other students to follow. For example, in the beginning when the students first entered the classroom, the automatically dropped bags on the floors and turned their desks into small groups. This action was reciprocated throughout the classroom as more students filed in. This type of modeling is also seen when a group of students would disagree or argue with Ms. Gruwell, and others would join in and add their own comments. Inhibition modeling is also seen in the film. The scene that most displays this function of modeling is when the image of Jamal is passed around the classroom. Inhibition modeling “when models are punished for performing certain actions, which in turn stops or prevents observers from acting accordingly.” Ms. Gruwell showcased this when she addresses the drawing and voiced why that type of behavior was not acceptable and would not be tolerated in the classroom. Lastly, observational learning can be seen in the context of the students originally being hesitant to listen to and trust Ms. Gruwell. Many of the students gave her a hard time, but