It has been proven, that schools that have summer projects verse schools that don't have on average a 15% higher testing average on finnal exams. All schools, except year around schools, have a nine week period where students are given a break from school and enjoy doing other activitys. During the summer many student take a break from school and explore more intrest, or get a summer job, or some even travel, ect. While summer can be a great experience for students, many students tend to lose valuable information that they learn the year prior. This causes teacher to have to review material from the previous year for the first couple of weeks during the new school year. To compact this issue many schools have started assigning summer projects, that helps students retain some of valuable information and make the transiton back to school easier. Most summer projects are teacher- designed , which mean that teacher come up with the concept of the project and have set expectations for that project. Althought some may believe otherwise my experience, the experience of friends, and the experience of classmates helps prove that summer projects should be student-desighned.

Based on my personal experience, summer projects should be student-designed. Last year I was assigned to write an essay based on shadowing experience of a career of your chosing. This was a student-designed project because students got the option to write about whatever particular career fasinated them. At first it was dificult to decide what career I wanted to chose, but in the end I ended up shadowing at a veterinary clinic. This was one of the best decisions I made, because it not only helped show me a potential career I might want to pursue, but also a major I might want to study in college. If this project was teacher designed and I was forced to write about a partiular subect I had no intrest in, then I might have never found out about my passion for helping for animals. While some may argue that teacher-designed project are more useful for the subject course, my student- designed project was more important because it helped me discover some new intrest, and it is important that schools help students discover what intrest them.

The experience of my friends Generic_Name and Generic_Name help prove that summer projects should be student-designed. Generic_Name summer project require her to complete a question and answer packet based on the first four chapters of the text book. Generic_Name project was to come up with a unique way of presenting the first four chapter to the class, so that they better understood the material. In the end, Generic_Name waited untill the last three days of summer to complet her packet, and ended up not full understanding the concept of the textbook. On the other hand, Generic_Names project required more work and time, which ment that she needed to not only start sooner, but also come up with a schedual that allowed her to finish before the project was due. This project helped Generic_Name develope better time management skills, and she ended up better understanding the concept as well. Some may arugue that the amount of work and time ashely spent on the project verses Generic_Name simple packet that didnt take as much time or effort wasnt as vauluable, but Generic_Name grades ended up suffered the first quarter due to her poor understanding of the material, and poor time mangement skills.

My classmate Generic_Name helps show the importance of student-directed projects. Generic_Names summer assignment was to present a worldly issue that impacts a country of his chosing to the class. This was a student-directed project because Generic_Name got to decide how he was not only going to direct the project, but what topic and country he would do. At first Generic_Name found this tasks quite dificult, and decided to gather a few of his friends to help eachother with the project. Generic_Name and his friends decided to do the same worldly impact but for diffrent counties. Without the colaboration of him and his friends, Generic_Name wouldn't have been able to excute the project as well as he did. Working together is always better than working alone, because it allows for people to show diffrent perspectives that you alone might not have taught of. Generic_Name also stated "if it was not for the help of my group I would have give up on the project' which helps show the importance of a support system. Although some may want to state that a teacher-directed projects are more insightful, working together increases a student responsibility skill and willingness to do the project because they have a duty to your group to finish the project.