Summer is the best time of the year and when the final bell of the school year sounds everyone jumps for joy for the three month long break. Summer gives students a break from nine months of hard work, tests, projects, and homework. However, some schools require students to complete summer projects to assure they continue learning during break. Summer projects should not have to be a punishment or torture; therefore, summer projects should be student-designed because it allows students to pick a topic they want to learn about, it makes it that students are more interested and driven to do research and learn new information, and it also enhances students to show their creativeness.

Student-designed projects allow for a student to choose any topic they want. If I had to do a summer project I would want to pick my own topic to learn about. I once had a summer assignment where the teacher gave us all the information and said to turn it in on the first day. The topic was not only boring, but it didnt make me learn because I ended up dropping out of the class due to the lack of interest in the subject. Students should be able to design a project based on a topic they want because it creates a better working environment when you do something you want to do versus being given something you dont want to do and told to do it. In result, all projects should be self chosen and not teacher chosen because of the drive to learn about something that entices an individual.

Student-designed projects would increase the interest level of learning and result in more passion and drive to learn. Not only would students learn more, they would get better grades on these projects because they would be more passionate about it due to being interested in the subject. I play baseball, and I know for a fact that if someone said to complete a project on any sport you want to I would be more excited than if someone gave me a sport like soccer that I wasnt interested in. This would promote better research, resulting in better grades and a higher level of learning. Being interested and passionate about a topic would also enhance one's creativity o a project.

Being creative on a project is a big part of most rubrics and in order to get a good grade one most show some sort of creativeness. Student-designed projects allow for the most amount of creativeness because you have free reign on what you want to do. Designs given by the teacher are structured and don't fully allow for the creator to show his or her way of expressing a topic through creative things like color, picture, words, etc. Student chosen projects provide a one-hundred percent option for anything you want to include.

Although teacher-designed summer projects provide a structured layout and a related topic the class, they dont allow for students to be interested and driven in a subject of their choice and to have the ability to put anything they want to in their project. Summer is a time of rest and teacher-designed projects cause stress and anxiety; however, student-designed projects allow for a student to be calm knowing that they are doing something they want to do and not doing something they have to do. Student-designed projects benefits and enables students to open learning during the best three months of the year.