Summer assignments are one of the aspects of summer break that students dread the most. It can make your Summer go from one hundred to zero really quickly, especially if it's late August and you just remembered it. Students dread it because it's so tedious and time consuming that it's less of a learning experience and more of a back breaking chore. Although, if they were made by students it would be a different story. Summer assignments should be assigned and designed by students and for students because otherwise they can be jarring and time consuming. Also if students were to make them, then it could touch more students on a personal level and have more creativity.

Summer assignments can feel repetitive and boring when some teachers assign it, especially reading assignments. It often boils down to the same formula: Read or research a book or topic, write an essay, make a connection, and sometimes something interesting is thrown in if you're lucky. Students most likely dislike doing it because it gives them nothing but a dry and lifeless "challenge", headaches, and wasted time for a grade. Also, a lot of teachers mistake challenge for difficulty when they are two vastly different things. Something can be challenging and easy, which is what summer assignments should be. They aren't hard or challenging in any way, it's just annoying. Additionally, the books are often chosen for you instead of finding one yourself, and even that's a gamble because you don't know if you'll like the book or not. Which makes the connection part harder because you may not connect with a single character in the book.

Students understand the pain and strife of other students, be it hard work, strict teachers, tight deadlines, or all of the above. What they also have a better understanding in, is that students don't want to spend a month, sometimes two, of their break doing research on a topic they don't care that much about. As well as they don't want to read a book in it's entirety that they didn't choose. So naturally they'll bring far more practical and interactive ideas to the table. Such as having them read from a genre of their choosing, or maybe having them analyze a movie or poem, or just having them do a project on an issue that affects them. It'll keep the same purpose of the summer assignment, keeping you working and educated while you're out of school, while making the whole experience less painful and tedious to go through.

Something that people might think when it comes to students making the assignments is they might make it too simple, thus making it ineffective. As well as the point of the boring books is to help students widen their vocabulary or show them . But, there are many ways to better someone's vocabulary than to thrust a four hundred plus page book onto them. Such as using a shorter book, maybe let them broaden it on their own fruition etc. Also, it is possible that there may be someone trying to help the others get out of jail free by giving them a low effort assignment. But, an easy way to fix that is to have a group of students rather than just one or a couple, then they could all vote and see which idea would benefit the most people. Furthermore, an easy assignment that students will enjoy and have fun with as they work is far better than a "hard" assignment that no one will enjoy.

There's nothing wrong with the idea of summer assignments on paper, but in practice it falls way short. But students can provide other students with a fun and truly challenging way without the hassle of bogus material. Naturally, this seems like a far fetched idea, having students assign any kind of assignments, but it might not be so bad if we just give it a try. Who knows, maybe the students will feel more inclined to do their work if they weren't getting the same thing every year.