Vertical Area Type tool: backwards?

I am working my way through "Classroom in a Box" for CS5.5. Everything has worked so far like the book says, but just now I tried to use the vertical area type tool. No matter what I do, the text is written from right to left instead of left to right. There isn't any info in the book about this and I can't find a setting or method to make it go the other way. I can't believe that it is supposed to write backwards. What am I missing here? It tried a search on the forum, but it looks like I'm the only one with this problem