It’s become a standard book and movie trope: An idealistic teacher walks into a classroom of hardened, at-risk students and strives to reach them.

But the outlines of the story, while familiar, can still surprise and inspire. In Deborah Hicks’s “The Road Out: A Teacher’s Odyssey in Poor America,” the author and educator writes about her experiences trying to help a group of troubled girls in urban Cincinnati using literature, empowerment, and personal communion.