Conrack

Conrack follows the story of a young teacher, Pat Conroy, in 1969 assigned to isolated “Yamacraw Island” (Daufuskie Island) off the coast of South Carolina and populated mostly by poor black families. He finds out that the children as well as the adults have been isolated from the rest of the world and speak a dialect called Gullah, with “Conrack” of the novel’s title being the best they can do to pronounce his last name. The school has only two rooms for all grades combined, with the Principal teaching grades one through four and Conroy teaching the remaining grades, five through eight. Conroy discovers that the students aren’t taught much and will have little hope of making a life in the larger world.