Summer is a time away from the stresses of school, the chaos of getting assignments in before the deadline, and a chance to catch up on the little to no sleep we've gotten. But remember that feeling of sitting in a desk after two or three months, not remembering the proper way to hold a pencil or how to speak a language you spoke in all of last year? Although it is a pain to be thinking about school and grades over the summer, doing some summer projects to keep our minds in check is not the worst idea in the world. However, the question of whether a summer project should be teacher-designed verses student-designed, I believe, has an enormous impact on the effectiveness and quality of the project itself. Based on personal experiences, summer projects should be student-designed to improve the quality, effectiveness, and to allow the project to be more enjoyable overall.

The idea is simple, it is a known fact that when a student likes what they are reading or learning, they are more motivated to do it. For my fourth grade summer project, my teacher assigned us all the same book and told to complete a plot analysis through either a paper or a plot diagram. I read this book the weekend before school started and wrote my plot analysis the night before. Looking back at it, I understand why fourth grade me put it off to the last second. Even eleventh grade me would put a project like that off to the last second. I wasn't given a choice. I had no freedom. Not even a little wiggle room to be creative. The quality of that project was very poorly done. I had no motivation to put even half of my effort into it because my number one goal was to get the project over with and finish it before the deadline.

However, my sixth grade summer project was very different. Our teacher allowed us to pick a book from a list and gave us some guidelines on a project we had to complete, but left the ends very loose so that we could choose what we did and how it was done. I chose to create a book trailer which soon became one of my favorite projects. I was so excited that I would work on it a little bit every day because I cared so much about the outcome. When I sent my project to my teacher, he sent me an email about how he was impressed with the amount of work and dedication I had put into a simple summer project.

To state the obvious, the quality, my attitude, and time management of my sixth grade summer project was very night and day when compared to my fourth grade project. It is more motivational to complete a project over the summer when it is something you enjoy. Whether that happens to be an essay or a book trailer, I strongly believe that students should be given the opportunity and freedom to make a project their own. For this can also help their new teacher get to know their students better for the new school year.