AP Lit students are wrapping up the year with a book of their own choosing as students were given a list of approved literature to choose from, including books intended for ninth grade english curriculum all the way to AP Lit curriculum. This list includes classic novels and other literary works including Hamlet, The Catcher in the Rye, and Frankenstein.

“We wanted to give seniors the opportunity to choose one more novel from our approved book list,” AP Lit teacher Katherine Allen said. “So that way they have choice, and they’re doing a book that they might actually enjoy.

Students also get to choose what assignments they do, get to decide whether each assignment will be a daily grade or a minor grade, and make rubrics for each of the six projects they have to do.

“We kind of figured that with all the testing happening with the lack of engagement at the end of the school year, that it would be a good idea to give students more flexibility and more choice in how they’re going to go about executing the assignments at the end of the school year,” Allen said. “It’s so that students can also kind of have more freedom and see what they’re going to be involved in when it comes to college, because in college you’re told to write a paper, and it doesn’t really give you guidelines, or you’re told you have a midterm and a final and that’s all. But you’re still expected to do the work in order to prepare for those. So we wanted to kind of give students more of a college like feel.”

The unusual nature of this project has left some students questioning its validity.

“I feel like there are some arbitrary aspects,” senior Luke Walls said. “The rubrics and the grade justifications, which have less to do with the actual learning taking place and more to do with shoving in enough grades for the six weeks.”

Other students have more mixed feelings about the project.

“It’s inconvenient for the students to make their own rubrics,” senior Spence Simmons said. “It’s nice that we’re able to choose which projects we do though.”