Story

I was at the Literacy Council today, and we got talking about our experiences with court-ordered students. (A court-ordered student is one who has been given the choice of jail, the army, or schooling. You can guess which choice they take.)
As I was driving home, I remembered my favorite experience with a court-ordered student:

He was a burly fellow with a biker bandana and the requisite number of tattoos and body piercings. That day in class, I had talked about dividing long words into syllables, using the vc/cv syllable division rule. We had reviewed the vowels and consonants, just to be sure that everyone knew the difference. After class, he stopped by to see me. He looked upset, so I asked what the problem was. He said, “I was doing just fine until you started talking about the continents.”