Surfing the waves, bike riding through the bustling streets, singing along to the pulsing beat at a concert, or lighting a bonfire under the gleaming stars. The teenagers in High School Musical think of such adventurous and dreamy ideas when they think of summer.  Unfortunately, high school is no musical and when CCHS students hear the word summer, their thoughts turn to assignments after assignments, essays after essays, and novels after novels. Most core subjects require various amounts of summer work. However, due to complaints from parents and students about the excessive amount of work, staff are making changes for next year.
Summer work is revised annually, but this year teachers were asked to consider the amount they assign. The assignments for English 10 Honors and AP English 12 (also known as AP Literature) received much of the criticism last summer because of the amount of homework that was required. On the receiving end of the work were two new teachers, Annie Barten and Kaitlin Pappert, who had no part in creating the assignments.
Assistant Principal Lisa Michel explained that the concerns revolved on the “quality and quantity” of the homework.  In terms of the English 10 Honors, sophomores were assigned to read and annotate Macbeth by William Shakespeare and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, to write eight short essays, and to read a few chapters from How to Read Literature Like a Professor along with writing paragraphs after each chapter.
English 10 honors teacher Barten was bombarded with complaints focused on the tremendous amount of writing. When asked about her opinion on the English 10 Honors homework, sophomore Zehra Patail said, “The summer homework was very overwhelming and interfered with my homework from other classes and my own reading agenda.” However intense the summer homework could be, Barten still says that summer work is necessary to keep up “academic habits and also keep the mind fresh.” Barten does agree that the students did not receive enough thorough information and instructions.
Another rigorous course that requires a lot of dedication towards the summer work is AP European History. In this class, students cover six hundred years of history, fifty four countries, and twenty chapters in thirty two weeks. The summer work is a head start to cover this immense amount of information. Students are assigned to take notes from a college level textbook and their understanding the information determines if they are ready to take this course. AP European History teacher Rachel Snyder has adjusted the summer work many times to make it reasonable and challenging at the same time. Snyder has researched how other countries across the world assign their AP European History homework and said that the one she personally assigns is “mild compared to other countries.”
Regarding the AP Literature summer work, seniors were assigned to read Beloved by Toni Morrison and How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster. In addition to the reading, they had to write six one-page long responsive essays and read the Bible along with annotating it. AP Literature teacher Pappert explained that Beloved is very “challenging and difficult to read without proper instructions.” Although Pappert did not assign the homework, while grading the assignments, she said, “It was so much work and I just felt guilty.” Pappert’s future plans for summer work consists of assigning a book that is a grade level below so students are more familiar and comfortable with the writing instead of feeling overwhelmed and confused.
To Michel, the summer work should answer three questions for a student: Did the students make the right decision in choosing the course? Did they receive the information they need for the course? Are they prepared for this course? Teachers not only assign summer homework to keep a student’s mind fresh, but to also evaluate their work habits and effort, and to assess a student’s readiness for the class.
The summer work for next year’s Honors and AP classes will have more specific instructions, thorough explanations and a rationale for the assignment. The summer work will also be posted on the CCHS website in early May so that students can preview it and ask any questions before the current school year ends.
Depending on how thoroughly the summer homework is revised and improved, CCHS students might have the opportunity to experience a summer where they could count the stars forming on the cotton candy skies at the beach instead of counting the number of pages they would have to read at the library.