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A portable confessional might be in order for Troy Grant on Friday — Constitution Day.

It seems like everywhere he goes, Grant of Bowie gets an apprehensive admission from someone who, to their embarrassment, doesn't know the Constitution past the preamble's opening three words: "We the people..."

People admit their Constitutional ignorance to Grant because he's an expert on the founding document. The government and psychology teacher at High Point High School in Beltsville has written a book making the Constitution more digestible for the modern American, "in other words ... The U.S. Constitution for Regular Folks." The book is available at Grant's website and at other local locations, such as the National Museum of American History's bookstore in Washington, D.C.

Grant can also recite the document — all 4,543 words — when given a little rehearsal time.

"I really do feel like a priest sometimes because people admit they don't know a single part of the Constitution besides the very beginning," said Grant, 40, who has published fictional books, and wrote "in other words" as his first nonfiction tome. "And I don't judge them at all. ... The Constitution wasn't real to me at one point. I used to think, ‘Who cares.' ... And that's part of a systemic and cultural ignorance that we have about our nation's [founding] documents."

"in other words" aims to remove the ambiguity from some parts of the Constitution, such as in parts of the document that repeatedly refer to slaves as "such persons," or the explanation of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote without mentioning the word "woman" once.

"I wanted to franchise women even more," Grant said, referring to his inclusion of "women" in his book, which hit bookshelves in April 2008. "I think that everyone reading this needs to know who exactly the document is talking about."

Grant's Constitutional breakdown also simplifies some of the legalese that makes some parts of the document difficult to get through.

"When they understand that simplicity, people tend to get a little more attached to it," he said, adding that Americans of every stripe trust that Constitutional experts will understand the document inside and out. "They leave it up to academics and absolve themselves of the responsibility."

"We, in many ways, love the representative part of our democracy, because we don't have to do as much in many ways," Grant added. "But that's not the reason it was set up like it was. ... We leave the reading of laws up to other folks, and that shouldn't be."

On the first day of every school year, Grant wows his students by reciting the preamble to the Constitution — a feat that pales in comparison to Grant's best trick: memorizing the Constitution from its first word to its last, and reciting it for awestruck crowds.

Tavares Martin, a High Point junior who took Grant's government class last year, said Grant's recitation of the Constitution's preamble grabbed students' attention. And Grant's lessons, he said, made the founding document more readable for 21st-century teenagers.

"Him knowing all that and being able to [recite it] perfectly is really impressive to students," said Martin, 15, of Beltsville. "And he was always good at breaking it down into terms that even an elementary student would be able to understand."

Grant performed his hour-long recitation at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Sept. 17, 2007, the 220th anniversary of the Constitution's signing. After practicing for an hour and a half every day for three months, Grant nailed it.

"That was the crowning moment of my whole Constitutional adventure," he said with a laugh.

Grant's website: www.tsgrant.com