WASILLA -- The Wasilla High School freshman missed class or straggled in around midday.
Teacher Jason Marvel worried about her, wondered about depression.
The girl -- she hoped to be a psychologist some day -- told him she didn't come to school because her family had been evicted and she had to stay home to take care of her little sister while her mom worked. She just wanted to sleep to escape it all.
He encouraged her to write in a journal.
She returned the notebook, every page full.
In it, Marvel saw in "a life scarred by experiences she shouldn't know at her age," he writes in a story about the girl he calls Charity -- a story that's about to hit a national stage.
The tale is one of 150 written by teachers affiliated with the Freedom Writers Foundation.
The new book, "Teaching Hope" is being released Aug. 18. It includes stories from teachers in the United States and Canada, with a forward by Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen.
Marvel, who now teaches at Palmer High School, is one of two Alaska teachers with stories in the collection. The other, Jennifer Angaiak, teaches in Fairbanks.
The Freedom Writers Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Long Beach, Calif., seeks to keep at-risk students in school with a three-pronged approach described by proponents as "engage, enlighten, empower." In 1994, foundation founder Erin Gruwell brought her methods to a classroom of "unteachable" students in the wake of the L.A. riots. Her reading list included books by teenagers, and she had her students keep diaries. Gruwell's work was documented in the 1999 bestseller, "The Freedom Writers Diary" and a 2007 movie, "Freedom Writers", starring Hillary Swank. She's coming to Alaska in October, through the work of a project Marvel co-founded called "Educators for Hope."
All of the teachers included in "Teaching Hope" participated in a five-day training in Long Beach, said the foundation's Lisa Smith. Marvel said a high school administrator recommended him for the competitive program.
It's easy to see why the 34-year-old Marvel connects with his students. He doesn't talk down to them. He quotes Pink Floyd lyrics.
He loves teaching traditional student favorites "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" -- Ken Kesey's novel about a mental institution -- and John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" but also gets his high school English classes to delve into weightier topics like existentialism.
Marvel says he tries to reach out to students by understanding where they're coming from: a broken home, a different economic class than the students around them.
"I'm on your side, I want to help you," he says about his philosophy. "From there, I can teach them anything, I can teach them 'Moby Dick' for crying out loud."
But, as he acknowledges in his 'Teaching Hope' submission, there's only so much a teacher can do.
"When students like Charity tell me that they've never known their biological fathers or that their mothers are recovering addicts or that they can't go to school because mom has to work and they have to take care of their brothers or sisters, I go silent," Marvel writes. "How can teenagers concentrate on the themes of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' when they are taking care of their siblings or if their dad doesn't come home?"
Marvel, 34, stays in touch with a number of his former pupils -- including Charity.
She moved out of state. But she's still in school.
"That's the beauty of being a teacher," Marvel said. "You connect with these kids and you can help change their lives for the better."
For more information, go to www.freedomwritersfoundation.org.
Find Zaz Hollander online at adn.com/contact/zhollander or call 907-352-6711.
By ZAZ HOLLANDER
zhollander@adn.com