“”LA CROSSE, Wis., (May 24, 2021) – Central and Logan High Schools are reinventing the Advanced Placement (AP) English Language and Composition summer assignment. Rather than a mandatory assignment, students will be invited to exercise choice and voice, building a positive culture of literacy through a new summer reading program.
Students in AP English courses have traditionally been tasked with a summer assignment that was due on the first day of school. The purpose was to ensure that students continued to read over the break, avoiding learning losses that could occur during that time. The summer assignment had also been used as a screener, and students who failed to complete it were sometimes discouraged from continuing in the course. However, teens have widely varying lives, resources, and support when they are not in school, and this mandatory assignment has unintentionally created a barrier to the success of disadvantaged students.
“We’ve created a bingo board with reading-related activities that we will distribute to students before the end of the school year,” said Logan High School teacher Alysha Feldkamp. “Students can choose from options that are approachable, offer variety, and mimic the way lifelong learners incorporate reading into their lives.”
For added motivation, students will be offered prizes for achieving bingo by the end of the summer thanks to a grant from the La Crosse Public Education Foundation that allows for the purchase of any book that a student chooses. The book prizes provide students ownership of reading, encourages further development of lifelong reading habits, and allows the teachers to learn more about their students as they place book orders together.
“We hope to foster a greater love of reading, lifelong learning, and prepare students for college and beyond by encouraging them to select their own books and read for pleasure,” said Central High School teacher Kim Butterfield. “We hope to build a positive culture around reading that shows students the benefits that we enjoy as adult readers.”
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