The film I will analyze in my analytical research paper is Freedom Writers. 

Thesis: One’s background and upbringing does not determine one’s life. With the correct attention and dedication, one can learn the importance of giving students an equal chance at life and from the knowledge developed by the students they can mature and expand life skills. 

Source 1: “Education Changes Lives – Grace’s Story” https://www.continuum.uw.edu/story/student-impact/grace-ingram

One of the three sources I’ll be using in my research paper is a story on a college profile about Grace who is a family support specialist who describes her story to help benefit and inspire others to be and do better. Throughout her story, she explains how she was raised in poverty and her struggles and how it conflicted her education. Though she dropped out of school and got married at a really young age, the desire to want an education never left from within her. Years later she returned for a degree and made it. This is relevant to my paper because it touches on the topic I will be analyzing in my paper. Essentially, when students are granted an opportunity to progress and learn despite their differences, it allows everyone to grow in life. The article conveys how a good education can turn one’s life around similar to the students from Freedom Writers.  

Source 2: “Equitable Education for Students in Poverty Starts with the Teacher”

https://www.gettingsmart.com/2016/08/equitable-education-for-students-in-poverty-starts-with-the-teacher/

This is another important article that supports my thesis and shows why students with harsh uprisings need teachers who will make a difference in their lives, education wise especially. For example, in the article Emily Liebtag explains how students who come from poverty tend to need extra support and guidance in school because they find themselves engaged in gangs and the streets due to stress and worries. Those teachers who realize and acknowledge that each student has a different background which means each student needs a different type of focus/attention in school will allow the students to actually be determined to learn and want to make a change. Being that students spend lots of time with teachers, teachers along as parents play a significant role on how students turn out in the future. There are also different strategies for the classroom environment to help a student engage which also helps students become more interested in learning. 

Source 3: Education: Making a difference one student at a time. | David Rock | TEDxUM

This last source is quite different from the other two because it is not an article, rather it is a ted talk. Throughout the ted talk David Rock explains the importance of perception of teaching and learning. He also brought up a really good point from Socrates, “Education is the kindling of a flame, not a filling of a vessel”. Socrates alone is a good way to analyze and break down the education system. His analogy of the man in the cave conveys how education is manipulated and sometimes misled. This ted talk is extremely significant to the research paper because he emphasizes a lot the importance of teachers changing their ways of teaching to help students learn. Oftentimes, teachers blame students for learning but Rock explains that sometimes it may be the teachers and their style of teaching. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrzxXpAjiTk 

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