What is the Common Reading?

LaGuardia Community College is proud to announce that Ernest J. Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying has been chosen as the common reading for the Academic Year 2008-2009.

A Common Reading is a text that all first year students receive from the college to enhance their academic experience. The college has provided the book to you as a sign of our institutional commitment to your education. The goals of having a common reading, a practice used by many colleges and universities, are to establish a greater sense of community among students and to provide an introduction to intellectual life at the college.

At LaGuardia Community College, we are using the theme of "Lessons for Life" this year as a way for you to connect your new academic, college life and the diverse student body of the college to your personal experiences. By reading writers such as Ernest J. Gaines and learning about how he has used his education to impact the world in which we live, you will discover one path into the critical material you will encounter in college. This year's common reading asks you, how will you use the lessons you learn at LaGuardia Community College for the rest of your life?

A Lesson Before Dying is the eighth common reading chosen for the college. In 2001-2002, the college community read and discussed the Delany Sister's memoir Having Our Say; in 2002-2003, the college community read and discussed Esmeralda Santiago's When I Was Puerto Rican; in 2003-2004, the college community read and discussed Tamim Ansary's West of Kabul, East of New York; in 2004-2005, the college community read and discussed Moises Kaufman's Laramie Project; in 2005-2006, the college community read and discussed Art Spiegelman's Maus; in 2006-2007 the college community read and .discussed Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, and last year, we read and discussed Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.