Summer reading project unrealistic

Even now that it is time to turn in our assignment, many students have not finished the dreaded summer reading project.

All students received this assignment at the end of the previous school year. Students had to read and reflect on what they read — every day.

But students were not allowed to read just any book. Students were only given two or three books to choose from, sometimes only one. In addition to reading a book, students must read poems and nonfiction articles like current events.

To receive an A on the assignment students must have 65-70 book entries, 20 poem entries, and 20 nonfiction article entries.

While it’s understandable that teachers want students to keep their minds engaged throughout the summer, to keep us from coming back with brains of mush, it’s unfair.

It’s called summer vacation for a reason. To get away from the tons of school work, and focus on relaxing and having fun.

Many students plan out their summer way ahead of time. Filling the days with friends, family trips, church activities, and some with part time jobs.

Many of the students on campus, even begin “school” early if their involved in sports, taking up a big chunk of their time in the last precious days before school starts.

To expect students to have time to write a journal entry every day, is a bit unrealistic. Students already struggle with wanting to get their assignments done during the school year. What makes teachers think we’ll want to take away time during our vacation to do a project?

Some students would argue that these journal entries only take about 5 minutes a day, if you were to do them right. However, for some people it’s not that easy. Sometimes people are slower readers than others. Some take longer to process what they’re reading.

Maybe the summer reading projects would be more enjoyable for students if there was a wider variety in the books we could read. Teachers could set requirements for a book Lexile level, instead of strictly just one to three books to choose from.

Maybe if teachers took into account the lives of students and how busy some of us are during summer months they could make the summer reading projects a reasonable task for all students.

I’m sure if this was thought about, more students would get the projects done, and would actually enjoy working on them.