Mike Rose's "I Just Want to be Average" And Malcolm X's "Learning to Read" are surprisingly similar. In both, they were put in institutions where the occupants were looked down upon, or considered to be inferior. Where they begin to differ is that Mike Rose was a capable student put in an environment where students and teachers showed little care, and Malcolm entered prison as an equal to the other inmates in an environment where the faculty attempts by inmates to learn. Returning to how thy're similar, both found strong interest in a certain activity, learning for one and reading for the other, and eventually moved on to continue exploration of their interests. I think I'll probably use a style of writing similar to theirs in the first paper, since I'm beginning to strongly consider a learning story that follows a similar course.