I believe that summer projects should be student-designed. Having a student design their summer work provides an opprontunity for their interests to influence it and lead to better work. I also think that if summer projects are student designed it will lead to a higher percentage of students completing the project. Student-designed summer projects are a step in the right direction for the school system.

I think that student designed summer projects will lead to better projects because their influences will take a major role in the completion. My friend Generic_Name once had to do a summer essay for his AP english 11 class. Generic_Name was normally a low B or high C student that had struggled with english his entire way through school. Before school ended his teacher told him that he could write this essay on anything he wished as long as it was completed. Generic_Name spent the whole summer in Yellowstone national park and had a blast. He went fishing, hiking, and camping as well as seeing beautiful sites like the geysers. When he got home instead of having to cram through a book and do a project on it he sat down at his desk and reflected on his summer and wrote a beautiful essay. He talked about what his summer had taught him, all the beautiful things he saw, and the lessons that he learned along the way. It was due to these personal interests that when he turned in his essay on the first day of school that he got an outright 100 and the teacher was pleasantly suprised with the work that he had done.

I also believe that student designed projects will lead to a higher completion rate. When my older cousin Generic_Name was growing up he dreaded summer projects. He disliked them so much that he almost dropped out've the AP program completely. He always told me that, "Summer was for relaxation not stupid school stuff.". Generic_Name was a good student, he always kept up with his work and had consistently high grades in all of his classes. However, even with these high standards he never completed a summer project and it always negatively effected his grade. I believe that if summer projects were student designed he would've had much more motivation to complete these assignments.

Some people say that if students design their summer projects that they'll find the easy way out and pick something simple; however, I don't find that to be true at all. Studies show that motivated students perform much higher than non-motivated students on almost any task. I feel that if students were allowed this priveledge they wouldn't take it for jeopardy. Having to write about a specific topic is a struggle for many students; however, being able to write about anything is typically percieved as the easiest thing to write about. This would allow students to write without boundaries and truly show their creative writing skills.

Letting students design their own summer project should lead to higher grades and completion rates throughout the student body. Students would be allowed to write about their influences as well as their passions and be able to explain them more vividly than before. Being able to write passionately about a topic that you aren't passionate about is not only tedious but difficult, but your own interests are the things people are most passionate about. Student designed summer projetcs are the way of the future in the school system!