Background of Study INTRODUCTION

3 named Rodney King became the subject of the police brutally on March, 3, 1991. The incident of King are fears that the latest incident could again ignite Los Angeles simmering racial tensions Los Angeles Time, 1992. That incident caused a huge riot a year later. The riots, beginning in the evening after the verdicts, peaked in intensity over the next two days, but ultimately continued for several days. A curfew and deployment of the National Guard began to control the situation; eventually U.S. Army soldiers and United States Marines were ordered to the city to quell disorder as well. Fifty-three people died during the riots with as many as 2,000 people injured. Estimates of the material losses vary between about 800 million and 1 billion. Approximately 3,600 fires were set, destroying 1,100 buildings, with fire calls coming once every minute at some points; widespread looting also occurred. Stores owned by Korean and other Asian immigrants were widely targeted, although stores owned by Caucasians and African Americans were targeted by rioters as well Wood, 2002. L.A.s darkest days. Many of the disturbances were concentrated in South Central Los Angeles, which was primarily composed of African American and Hispanic of any race residents. Half of all riot arrestees and more than a third of those killed during the violence were Hispanic of any race, but it’s not ended yet. After knowing the situation behind the problem in the movie, I was started to compare multiculturalism problem inside the movie and multiculturalism around my surrounding. My own experienced about multiculturalism started when I took English Department in Satya Wacana Christian University. There, I have to share classes with many kinds of people from Ambonese, Chinese, and Bataknese and etc, which I 4 haven’t had before. Like what is stated by James Lynch 1986, multicultural class contains cultural diversity. The diversity of the class create many problems; it is clearly shown in the film how every race has their own gap among the others. The same case also occurs in my surrounding, that usually students will make a group which consist only one kind of people. For example, the Ambonese will make a group that only consist from Ambones only and vice versa. Then, other difficulties is racism will happen with or without been realize. Some of them start to underestimate other friends that different with them. These kinds of situation more or less will affect the class situation. Student will be rather difficult to build a strong teamwork when they have to work together. I can conclude that, multicultural class, actually also occurs in Indonesia without us realized the multiculturalism issues here. In this study I am willing to find out teaching techniques that can be used in the “Freedom Writers” in dealing with multicultural students. It is hoped that through this study, both the teacher and students of a multicultural class can learn from the film, that multiculturalism problem can be solved and unity can be built in the educational surroundings.

B. Research Question

The study is conducted to address the following question: 1. What are the challenges or problems that occur in multicultural classes in the Freedom Writers film? 2. How the teaching techniques are implemented to solve the multicultural class problems? 5

C. Objectives Of The Study

The research is intended to achieve the following objectives: • The purpose of the study is to find out the problems that occur in the Freedom Writers film. • The purpose of the study is to analyze teaching techniques that are used in the film, moreover to understand them and their benefits so they can be applied in the real class.

D. Scope Of The Study

The study was limited to examine the challenges that occur and how the teaching techniques are implemented to solve it in multicultural class. By finding the teaching technique, the writer hopes that the techniques can be applied in the real class.

E. Significance Of The Study

• This study is expected to help English department’s student when they have to deal with multicultural students later. • This study also gives English teachers some ideas of various ways of dealing with multicultural students in a class

F. Methodology In Research

To collect data, the writer will analyze the ‘Freedom Writers’ film using qualitative research, that according to Encyclopedia.com 2009 means to provide understanding to human experience, perception, motivation, intention and behavior based on the description given in the film. The analysis needs to find out the teaching 6 techniques used in the film. After all the teaching techniques can be found, the writer has to analyze each teaching technique and look up the definition each of them. The next step, this study will focus in the classroom activities, to know the strategies used by Erin Gruwell in the film. Furthermore, this research aims find out how the teaching techniques are utilized to solve the problems in setting. Then, after all of the methods in the film can be found, the writer will be able to compile every technique that used by Erin Gruwell to handle her students and find out the most effective way to deal with multiculturalism problems in order to build unity among the members of Gruwell’s class and other multicultural classes that might experience similar problem – like FBS Satya Wacana Christian University.