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3. Teaching technique used in FREEDOM WRITERS film.
To explain teaching techniques we can not avoid discussing the methodology also, because teaching technique is the practice of the methodology Nunan, 2003. In
that case, we will talk about teaching techniques used in the multicultural class based on the Freedom Writers film. According to the film, the teacher, Erin Gruwell, mostly
focused on reading and writing skills to develop her students’ abilities by letting them read some books on multicultural issues.
• Reading and Speaking Teaching Techniques
Erin Gruwell focuses in reading, speaking and writing, to handle her multicultural class. For teaching reading and speaking themselves there are many
techniques that she used like the cultural differences, ethnic additive and fishbowl.
Cultural Differences teaching technique is the first technique that shown in
the film. This teaching technique let students know other cultures and their problems then compare them with the multicultural learners in her class. In many programs
Gruwell changes the curriculum and adjust it to the academic needs Nunan, 2003 In this type of technique, the curriculum may not be changed significantly, but the focus
of the Cultural Differences technique maybe aids students in making the transition into the mainstream of education. The technique itself includes effort to draw on,
cultural-based learning style, and bilingual program.
The second teaching technique used by Erin Gruwell is Ethnic Additive. This
technique integrates ethnic content into the curriculum by adding content, concept, themes and perspective to the curriculum without changing the basic structure,
purpose and characteristic. According from Banks, class content from different ethnic groups, is added to the pre-existing curriculum. The Ethnic Additive approach is often
14 accomplished by the addition of a book, a unit or a course of the curriculum without
changing it substantially Banks, 2006. Furthermore, Banks is not the only one, who stated about Ethnic Additive, Aldrich and Young 2000 also said that Ethnic
Additive is the inclusion of some information about the cultures and histories of previously omitted ethnic groups in the school curriculum.
The third technique used by Erin Gruwell is Fishbowl teaching technique.
This technique usually used outdoor not the classroom to built interactive communication between each students’ because in Fishbowl approach group dynamic
are important. This technique allows students to have a richer discussion and deep analysis about text that they have been read before Sterling, 2006. Moreover, this
way of teaching also provides the discussion about problems that was faced by both speaker and her class. Another explanation of Fishbowl, came from KS Toolkit in his
web www.kstoolkit.org, who said that Fishbowl involves a small group of people usually 5-8 seated in circle, having a conversation in full view of a larger group of
listener. Fishbowl processes provide a creative way to include the “public” in a small group discussion. They can be used in a wide variety of settings, including
workshops, conferences, organizational meetings and public assemblies. Fishbowls are useful for ventilating “hot topics” or sharing ideas or information from a variety of
perspectives.
The last is Information-Driven and Thought-Provoking teaching technique.
Both techniques are used to inform the students about other cultures toward providing information on ways of life in different cultures with a view to broaden the reader
vision of cultural diversity Bishop, 1994, Having been informed, students will be empowered by Thought-Provoking technique that challenge them to think about
15 issues that they may face in reality. As Barta and Grindler 1996 points out, “simply
reading about cultural variation may do little to affect the degree of inequality in our society.”
Writing teaching technique
From the film, the writer found two teaching techniques used by Erin Gruwell in her way to delivery the basic knowledge in writing skill into her students. The first
technique she applied Free Writing technique to handle her multicultural class. Free
writing also can be called Stream-of- consciousness- writing, where students are allowed to write continuously for a set period of time without regard to spelling,
grammar or topic Elbow, 1998. Furthermore, Elbow 1998 said that the key of free writing is never stopping writing because the goal of free writing is the process not
the product. Elbow’s opinion about Free Writing was accepted by Wendy Major, in her essay, Free Writing: A Means of Critical Thinking to Collage Freshmen, which
strongly agree with Elbow’s explanation. So, from that definition, Mrs. Gruwell is try to apply this method in her class, by asking her pupils wrote a diary, which contains
their opinion, story, experience, or anything they want to write and share. By doing Free Writing, there are two advantages that Gruwell gets from this technique. The
first one; she gets information about background of each student without asking them personally, it is important to help them solve their problem and second thing, she
makes her students apply her writing theory, without making them feel bored. The
next technique is Writing Letter Social Action Approach, that be used by Erin
Gruwell to teach her multicultural class. This approach is intended to develop the students’ ability in arranging a good sentences and language choices. Moreover, this
technique taught the pupils to make their opinion in written and appropriate language.
16 According to Maryemma Graham, it would be better if the students of multicultural
class have interaction with someone who was already in their position or had felt the same situation with them Maryemma, 1998. His idea made Gruwell to assign her
students making letter to Miep Gies, the witness of Holocaust victim, Anne Frank. Here, Miep Gies, an Austrian who lived in Germany in NAZI era feels the same way
as the students do because she live in the chaotic situation, where so many people were killed for no reason than the fact that they were Jews. Furthermore, Miep Gies
do something to help a Jew girl names Anne Frank, because she believed that she did the right thing although in the end Anne Frank finally was caught and killed.
Essentially, multicultural education is about social change through education. Moreover, multicultural education needs deep and critical thinking, imagination and
commitment to be involved in the part of multicultural class, as a teacher or students. Freedom Writers film is the example of applying multicultural education and its
methodologies. However, the teacher, Erin Gruwell gave real examples of interesting activities based on the methodology. This case helps teachers who dealing with any
multicultural problems.
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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This study was intended to figure out the teaching techniques used, to deal with multicultural student, in Freedom Writers film. In this chapter, the writer will
discuss the methodology used in conducting this research. The discussion involves this description of 1 the type of the research, 2 subject, 3 instrument, 4 data
analysis, and 5 research procedure.
A. The Type of the Research
This research was qualitative as it analyzes a film, Freedom Writers. The strength of this methodology is the data is collected directly from the movie so that
the writer is able to do analysis based on the visual in the movie.
B. Subject
Based on the intention of the research, the subject of this research is Freedom Writers film, particularly on Erin Gruwell, a teacher of Wilson Woodrow High
School, a Long Beach, California’s high school who taught underprivileged students, who had forced to come in school. There, the writer could see the way she taught
them in different ways.
C. Instrument
The data for the study were collected using the copy of the film that can be watched any time. Furthermore, the writer also uses the script of the film to make
every conversation clearer while analyzing the film.
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D. Data Analysis
After watching the movie, the writer wrote the summary of the Freedom Writers film. Then, the writer will analyzing and writing down the scenes in the
movie that contains teaching techniques that we visualized. If the data has been written, the writer wills analyze the problems and
challenges that occurs due to multiculturalism issues in the classroom. Then, the last step is finding how the teaching techniques used by Erin Gruwell are applied to
control her class.
E. Research Procedures
The first step of the research procedure was to find the Freedom Writers film. After that, the writer watched it, in addition, the writer also look for background
behind the movie that can be found in internet about LA riots at 1994 and the book, titled The diaries of Freedom Writers that wrote by Erin Gruwell and her students to
deepen the writer understanding. Later, the writer will analyze the data started from made summary and finds out the teaching techniques used in the film. The analysis
will focus on the teaching techniques used by Erin Gruwell in the class to teach her multicultural students. Finally, the writer will make the conclusions based on the
findings from interpret and analyze the film.
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CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS
4.1. Data Analysis
In this chapter, the writer wants to answer the research question “what are problems that happened and the teaching techniques that use to deal with
multicultural students in the film.” Here the writer is going to present the analysis of the film, focusing on the problems occurred in the multicultural class and the teaching
techniques used to deal with it.
4.2. Racial and Social Discrimination in the Classroom
The setting of ‘Freedom Writers’ film was the year after Rodney King’s riot,
which started from the racial discrimination done by white people. Although the situation got better than the years before, there was still so many problems happened
particularly racial discrimination. As Mack 1970 says, American are racist, in his book, ‘Prejudice and Race
Relation’, because America consists of so many ethnic group based on their biological features that obviously cannot be ignored. Furthermore, racial discrimination refers to
unequal and unfair treatment and denial of rights of a group of basis. In Freedom Writers movie, there are several factors induce racial discrimination among
ethnicities, from the majority toward the minority. According to Glitter 1956 minority groups are groups which the member of its groups experience a wide range
of discriminatory treatment and frequently are relegated to position relatively low in the status structure of the social system.
In the film Freedom Writers, there were some scenes that showed racial and social discrimination happening among students in class 203 because of their racial
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