Summer is already a time where students want a break from school and adding a summer assignment will make students less motivated to do it. If students are able to design their own summer projects they'll have more motivation, use their own creativity and avoid procrastination.

First, students tend to always procrastinate with a lot of homework assignments,especially over big breaks. This can lead to not doing an overall good job on a project, which can then lower students grades. When I was in my freshman year of high school, I had a summer assignment due by the first week of school. I had to read any book that my teacher had put on a list. The list was of super boring poetry books that I had nothing in common with. I had to pick a book so i finally picked this random book, Fly. I didnt want to read this book so I waited until the last week of summer break to read it. Little did I know that I had to write an essay, create a poster about the book and create a short film about it. I was up every night that week trying to complete it last minute. When I got to the first week of school I had received a 78 on the project. This was not the best I could of done, but because I waited last minute I got a low grade. If I had a book that I was interested in this would all of been avoided.

Next, creativity is something that people lack nowadays, they always rely on others to create something for them such as projects, work, etc. If students are challenged to use their own creative minds to create a project it will help them for the future when they need to do these things for jobs. I am someone who hates being told what to do and how to do something, so being able to design my own project will make me want to do it even more. I had a project that I got to design for my chorus class that I was in my sophomore year. I got to create a schedule for elementary school choirs, that was the topic I got to choose myself because it seemed interesting. I did my own research and found the perfect teaching plans for an elementary school choir class. It was such a good project because I was able to create exactly what I was passionate about, but it was still related to the class I was in. The elementary school across the street from my high school liked my ideas so much from my project that this year they use it for their lesson plans.

Lastly, students already have very little motivation to do anything in the summer time. All they want to do is have fun and not have to worry about school projects. Teachers expect us to want to do everything that they assign and thats not always true. If they want to keep students motivated and to do something well done, then teachers should have students do their own work. Forcing us to do something also makes students not motivated. In my sophomore year, I had a few teachers force us to do assignments that were very boring and it made me not motivated to do it at all. If I was able to design my project I would of been happier and not have felt forced to do it. I would of enjoyed working on the project and I would of done my best on it.

It is nice when teachers come up with ideas on assignments because then students will have deadlines to complete it by, its more organized and teachers dont have to worry about students going off topic, but having students pick what they want to do will make a better project overall because students will be more motivated to do it, turn it in on time, not procrastinate and use their own creativity inside of their summer projects.