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Pat Conroy, born on October 26, in Atlanta, was the first of seven children of a young Marine officer from Chicago and a Southern beauty from Alabama, to whom Pat often credits for his love of language. The Conroys moved frequently to military bases throughout the South, and Conroy eventually attended The Citadel, a military college in Charleston, South Carolina. Conroy often joked that a military school was an unconventional choice for someone who dreamed of being a writer, but, in fact, he found a number of deeply supportive faculty there, and Conroy&#;s first book, The Boo (), is a tribute to Lt. Col. Thomas Nugent Courvoisie, who served as a mentor to many Citadel cadets.
Following graduation, Conroy taught English and psychology at Beaufort High School, his alma mater, and in he took a job teaching underprivileged children in a one-room schoolhouse on Daufuskie, a small island about three miles off the South Carolina mainland. Conroy&#;s year on Daufuskie was one of great change. That fall, he married Barbara Bolling Jones, a young Vietnam widow with two daughters, Jessica and
The Water Is Wide: A Memoir
42 pages • 1 hour read
Pat Conroy
Pat Conroy
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in
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Overview
First published in , novelist Pat Conroy’s book, The Water Is Wide: A Memoir,recounts his experiences teaching on an island off the South Carolina coast.
A young teacher, Pat considers the Vietnam War to be unjust and intends to join the Peace Corps in order to avoid being drafted. When he does not hear back about his application, he volunteers to teach on Yamacraw Island instead. In his first week, Pat is shocked by how little education the children have received. Some are illiterate, and some cannot count to ten. More than this, they are starved of basic knowledge of life beyond the confines of the island. They do not even know that they live in the United States. His fellow teacher, Mrs. Brown, has a radically different approach to teaching than Pat does. Although she is black herself, she ins
The Water Is Wide: A Memoir
New York Times Bestseller: The “miraculous” memoir of an inspiring teacher and the students who changed his life on an impoverished South Carolina island (Newsweek).
Though the children of Yamacraw Island live less than two miles from the southern mainland, they can’t name the US president or the ocean that surrounds them. Most can’t read or write. Many of the students are the descendants of slaves, handicapped by poverty and isolation.
When Pat Conroy arrives, an eager young teacher at the height of the civil rights movement, he finds a community still bound by the bitter effects of racism, but he is determined to broaden its members’ horizons and give them a voice.
In this poignant memoir, which Newsweek called “an experience of joy,” the New York Times–bestselling author of The Prince of Tides plumbs his experiences as a young teacher on an isolated South Carolina island to reveal the shocking inequalities of the American education system.
Reading Group Guide
1. THE WATER IS WIDE is set on Yamacraw Island in , which is the fictionalized name for Daufuskie Island, just off South Carolina. In his first few weeks on the island, Conroy learns that his students aren’t just at a rudimentary reading level (“Seven of my students could not recite the alphabet. Three children could not spell their names…. Eighteen children did not know we were fighting a war in Southeast Asia”) and soon realizes this is going to be harder than he thought. He’s finally able to connect with the children through music. Why do you think music was an effective bridge to reach them?
2. Conroy seems complacent in describing his own casual racism in his youth. What led him to change his thinking and pursue a teaching job to Black youths on a remote island? What did Pete Seeger’s song “We Shall Overcome” have to do with it?
3. Looking back as he writes his memoir, Conroy realizes the earnestness with which he and his friends like Bernie approached teaching: “God, we were concerned about things: war, prejudice, injustice, education. Together we were insufferable, pontifical, self-ri
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