English Department makes beneficial changes to summer reading

By Daniela Coe-Mcnamara
Staff Writer

This year, members of Mira Costa’s English Department revamped the summer reading assignment by adding a more personable, in-depth book review and an updated book list in a successful attempt to make the reading assessment more relevant to students.

For more than 17 years, every returning Costa student has written an in-class timed essay about the students’ assigned books, according to English Department co-chair Jonathan Westerberg. Now, all College Preparatory classes use the new book review system, while advanced classes still use timed writings.

The updated book review assignment is particularly specialized to highlight the strengths of not only the summer reading book chosen, but of each student’s writing skills, which especially benefits teachers because they can get a better understanding of their students’ skill level.

All CP English courses’ summer reading book list were also changed, with more than half the books on this year’s lists being published in the last five years, versus the previous lists which are comprised of books that are as old as the early 1900’s, according to Westerberg.

As stated by English teacher Stacy Cabrera, these new options provide a larger variety of texts for students to choose from. This is more beneficial for students as it encourages them to read the entire book which, in turn, will reduce cheating through the reading of online summaries. Because of the more recent books, students are forced to do the summer reading due to the lack of summative resource materials that were more readily available for the classic previous summer reading books.

The department also made the decision to continue updating the book list every year, with selections from that year’s finalists and winners of the Alex and Prince awards by the American Library Association, a prestigious award given to the best teen books written that year.

This is a plus for teachers because the ever-changing list discourages cheating even more, as students cannot trade information or papers from year to year. However, the negative side of the system is that in order for teachers to truly understand the context of the book reviews, they must read all 10 of the books on the new list every year.

Westerberg believes that the book reviews are much more interesting for teachers to grade than hundreds of the same timed writings. The book review is more personal and also allows for students to add their own views into the evaluation, giving teachers a much deeper understanding of their new students’ writing and reading preferences.

The book reviews are all published on a website that students, teachers and the Costa staff have access to throughout the school year. This new incorporation of technology within the school as a whole allows for all Costa faculty and students to find interesting books that their peers or students have enjoyed, making use of the assignment long after its completion. It will also allow students to feel like their pieces are acknowledged by the school as a whole, rather than just the teacher.

The new summer reading program has many favorable aspects, including a more intriguing book list and personalized book review, that will encourage students to actually complete their summer reading. The English Department took a chance with this program and ultimately succeeded in making a more relevant and up-to-date summer assignment for students.