This article on CommonLit, originally from a National Public Radio broadcast, tells the story of a student who faced incredible challenges and was still able to succeed academically. Alexis Morales, a teacher from Brooklyn College, uses the article with her adult education students at the beginning of the semester to help them identify academic goals and talk to each other about challenges they want to overcome.

With a free account, CommonLit provides many articles with downloadable pdfs, comprehension questions, discussion questions, read aloud tools, and annotation for the text. Check out our review of the site.