By Minh Ngoc Le
Every summer, the Fountain Valley High School English Department assigns readings to better prepare Honors and AP students for the school year.
This summer, freshmen were required to read three novellas: “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway, “The Pearl” by John Steinbeck, and “Anthem” by Ayn Rand. The students were encouraged to take notes throughout the journey to prepare themselves for an end-of-summer test, designed to check for their reading-comprehension skills and understanding of the books. These assignments were intended to help students familiarize themselves with the new amount of workload while learning to become active readers. However, many contemplate about the purpose of the assignments and whether or not they are truly effective.
“For the record, I’m against summer reading assignments,” Douglas Wilton, an Honors English teacher of 19 years said. “Students who want to read in the summer are going to read anyways. And if they’re going into an honors class, it’s not always because they love English or reading, especially in today’s educational climate.”
Wilton mentioned feeling that they are unnecessary, but still agrees that it comes with its benefits.
“In the English department, we read three novels and use the themes of those books to help relate to other works of fiction that we read throughout the year,” Wilton said. “So it does help us expand the curriculum and help students shake the rust off to get ready for the upcoming school year.”
Despite the department’s intentions in assigning summer readings, students have mixed opinions. Here are some of their thoughts.
Photos by Kailyn Huynh.
“I think it’s beneficial to read the books, but I don’t know about the test because kids are stressed out,” freshman Keilani Hatamoto said. “I think it would be better if [the English Department] gave us three options, let us choose which book to read, then test us on that singular one.” 
“I don’t think they are necessary. I think that I would do much better if the teachers would just give us a passage to comprehend and see how our comprehension skills are instead of things like memorization,” freshman Suri Le said. “I feel like it stressed me out because I spent most of my summer worrying [about] whether or not I would do well on the test.” 
“[I think] it’s fine. I don’t really care about it,” freshman Arturo Zavala said. “I just did it, then took the test. It was not really beneficial, and didn’t help prepare me for the school year.” 
“I think summer reading assignments are kind of pointless,” Lily Huynh said. “I feel like some people who started reading at an earlier time did really poorly compared to people who procrastinated. It really just depends on your memory retention and doesn’t really test your comprehension skills.”
