Every year it’s the same assignment; the dreaded summer reading.
Summer reading books are supposed to be “free choice,” but translating that into teacher’s terms is…pick a book off this list and pretend to enjoy it.
Some students genuinely enjoy summer reading and having a chance to read a new book, but others not so much. Not only are we forced to read a “choice book” about something we couldn’t care less about, but we are given an assignment, most likely a graphic organizer, establishing the main points.
What’s even worse is that in some English classes, there’s no choice at all. For AP Language and Composition, The Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass is your best friend the first week or two, until you get tested on how in depth you actually read or if you just quickly skimmed Spark Notes right before class actually started.
For rising seniors, Macbeth was shoved in students’ faces since your junior year ended and now approaching week three, is still prevalent in each class. Yes, Macbeth is a classic. Yes, it is Shakespeare, but is it really that important? Do we need that book to function in society? Probably not.
Reading Macbeth and Frederick Douglass doesn’t define your intelligence. Books shouldn’t have to be an assigned task given to children. They should want to read, but in today’s society, everything is pushed upon us- including books.
Reading a bedtime story was always the highlight of the day, until people started making the decision for us, and now we can’t wait to finish that last chapter, releasing us from the dreaded “one chapter per night.”
Maybe some people like the assigned books and being forced to read something, but for the majority, this situation is not ideal.
Students complain through the summer about how they don’t want to do the assignment, and honestly, most people just open up Spark Notes and hope for the best, and inevitably end up failing the quiz or bombing the essay handed out to them on the first day.
We need a variety to choose from and need to be able to express ourselves as the students we are.
What we’re all trying to say is, let us pick our own books. Give us a chance to actually enjoy the assignment we’re given instead of dreading it all summer and putting it off until the last weekend before school starts.