Some schools require students to complete summer projects to assure they can continue learning over their break. should these summer projects be teacher-designed or student-designed? Well personally I don't think there should even be a project, but for the sake of this essay, let's say I do think there should be. Should summer projects be student, or teacher based? I think it should be student based, but to an extent.

Summer projects should be student-based. But only to a certain extent. While giving students the option to do a project on whatever they want is a good idea, but also a bad one. For example, a student who traveled to a different country could do a project on the cultural differences of the two places. While on the other hand, a student that stays home all summer does one that is too easy and looks like a third grader did it. While I agree that giving the students the freedom to pick what they want is a good thing, it can also be a bad thing. Which is why I also think that the projects should be teacher based.

Why should they be teacher based? Well, when the students are allowed to pick their own topic for a project, they can be either good, or bad. But when a teacher picks the prompt for them, or maybe lets them pick out of a set list of prompts, then the teacher knows what to expect, and how to grade it. But even though the teacher might like it, the students may hate it. Take this SOL essay prompt into example, making teenagers write an essay about summer projects? No student wants to do that, but they grudgingly do it because they know they need to pass this to graduate.

But, while no student likes doing projects during their break from school, it's better to have the students have a prompt that was hand picked by them from a list made by a teacher. Because it's better to know that the prompt for the project was well thought out by someone with a teaching degree, instead of a quick Google search done by a teenager looking for an easy A on a project.