James Macay
Prof. Kitana Ananda
ENG103.0905
November 5, 2017
Annotated Bibliography
The first article I want to use is from the Association of American Colleges and Universities, it is based on the expectations of community colleges versus the reality. From the articles point of view, the reality is that community college students are underprepared. That general idea I can agree and disagree on different bases. Within the article there are situations and statistics described that I felt I could relate to from my own experiences. One for example, 37 percent of those enrolled in developmental math said that the course they were placed in was not appropriate to their skill level. I personally dealt with the remedial math classes and it was a situation in which the work is very simple to complete, for the reasons of me having taken the classes in highschool and understanding what is going on. The work is so easy that it is annoying, truly makes you question what you are doing there. Overall, this piece of evidence supports the thought of taking the initiative and doing what you have to do.
There were about two to three readings shared in class as reading assignments that I would like to refer to. One of them being Two Years Are Better than Four. One line I enjoy from it was, “Thus, Mr. Perlstein concludes, the college experience – a rite of passage as it was meant it to be – must have come to an end. But he is wrong.” I feel this and more pieces from the article can give backbone to my argument. Also, I feel using the Malcolm X article can help me argue an alternative to community colleges, because even though my argument is to convince people of the gold mine community colleges are, if you really cannot go to school or do not want to, take the alternative that Malcolm X took and read books, self educate yourself. Then again goes back to my other point, it is up to you to take the initiative.
What I will do next is take a trip to the archive and do research on what was going on around the time in which LaGuardia built LaGuardia Community College, a gold mine in itself for the public. In my research I also hope to find out why he decided to build a community college. I also am considering finding another source to shed light on the real help of financial aid.
Work Cited
Liz Addison, “Two Years Are Better Than Four,” The New York Times Blog, September 26,
2007.
Malcolm X, “Learning to Read,” Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking
and Writing, pp. 161-169.
Peden, Wilson. “Expectations Meeting Reality: The Underprepared Student and
Community Colleges.” Association of American Colleges and Universities, 15 Aug.2017,