Summer projects are a great way to keep students learning over the summer. Some students may find them tedious, but they are actually very beneficial by keeping the students' minds working over their extended break. But, when teachers assign such projects, sometimes they are not interesting nor engaging for the students. Thus, the interesting projects over summer break should be based on the student's interest in a subject, and not determined by a teacher, who may choose a topic that the student is not interested in.

Often times during the school year, students take classes on subjects which they are not interested in in order to improve their college applications; this should not be the case for summer projects. The summer is a time for students to take a break from the rigorous math and English classes they took during the school year, and relax and do the things that they love. Therefore, to keep students engaged in their summer projects, they should determine what sort of work they do. For example, a person who has read all of the Percy Jackson novels would be very interested to learn about the classic Greek myths, and would greatly enjoy their spending a portion of their summer break reading Greek mythology. But if their English teacher assigned them a reading about the plight of the Native Americans, the student would likely not do the project until the last week of summer break, and would not retain any information and would receive a poor grade to start off the new school year. It is essential that a student researches what they like, and not something that is forced upon them by a previous teacher of theirs.

At Generic_School, ninth-grade students were assigned a summer reading about the civil war, in which many students did not do, and thus started off the school year with a poor grade. They were not interested in the subject and thus did not want to waste a portion of their summer break doing something they do not enjoy. Some students did well on it, though, and that is where the issue is. An individual student would likely receive a grade for this project based on their interest in the subject, instead of their abilities as to do research and make a final product out of it. This is because those who were interested in the civil war or who had abundant previous knowledge of it would get a one-hundred percent on the project because they were either very interested in it or did not have to do any research to write the essay. Those who were interested were motivated to learn about it and did lots of research. On the other hand, there were students who did not care for researching the Civil War as they did not find it interesting. Some of those students were the brightest in the class, and received a poor grade. The issue is that teacher-assigned summer projects cater to the interest of few, if any, of the students in a certain class, which causes grade discrepancies based on previous knowledge and interest, rather than ability to perform a task. Thus, if each student could choose their own topic to research over summer break and have the teacher approve it, there would be less unfair grade discrepancies between students of equal intelligence.

Research projects are of the utmost importance in the later stages of student life, thus students should learn how to write a good paper early on in their careers, and there is no better way to do that than to have them research a topic they are intrigued by. As previously mentioned, many students who were not interested by the topics assigned by teachers would often times not do the project or do the whole thing the night before school starts, and thus start the year off with a horrible grade. There is a more long-term effect of this issue, though. summer projects are not assigned solely for the purpose of learning the material, teachers also want students to learn how to research effectively and write good essays. In order to do this most effectively, though, the students must have an interest in the topic, and if their topic is their choice, they will pick one that peaks their interest and will most likely perform better on it compared to a topic which they did not choose. This will improve their essay writing and research abilities in the future, and help create a more interested and intelligent student body.

To conclude, students who are required to complete summer projects should be allowed to choose the topic they will research over the summer. Summer break is a time for relaxation and fun for students, thus when they must work it should be interesting, and allowing students to choose their own topics for research would make each individual more involved in their work. The issue with teacher assigned summer projects is that they cause grade discrepancies between students of equal intelligence based on their previous knowledge of a subject. Grade discrepancies should derive from a student's ability to perform the task at hand, and not their previous knowledge or interest in the subject, and that is what happens with teacher-assigned summer projects. Finally, students develop research skills when they do well on a research project, and having students pick a topic interesting to them will increase their chances of doing well.