When an assignment asks students to identify and analyze literary devices in The Call of the Wild, grading consistency often breaks down simply because different graders have slightly different expectations for what counts as sufficient analysis versus mere identification of a device.

The novel offers strong, teachable examples of personification, particularly in how Buck's thoughts and instincts are rendered almost as if he were human, as well as vivid imagery describing the Klondike landscape and extended metaphor around the idea of the call itself as an ancestral summons.

A device checklist keeps grading focused and fair by giving every grader the same shortlist of devices to expect, rather than leaving it open to whichever devices a given teacher happens to notice first while reading a particular essay.

Key devices worth building the checklist around

Personification is probably the most productive device to focus on, since Buck's internal experience is rendered with human-like thought processes throughout the novel, giving students rich material to analyze how this technique shapes reader sympathy for a non-human protagonist.

• Personification: how Buck's instincts and thoughts are rendered in human terms, and what effect this has on reader sympathy
• Imagery: vivid sensory description of the Klondike environment and how it reinforces the novel's themes
• Extended metaphor: the call itself as a recurring metaphor for ancestral memory and primal instinct
• Foreshadowing: early hints of Buck's eventual transformation planted before major turning points
• Symbolism: recurring objects or images, such as the club or the fire, that carry meaning beyond their literal role

Scoring identification versus analysis separately

Many students can correctly name a literary device without being able to explain what effect it has on the reader or the novel's meaning. Splitting the rubric into separate identification and analysis criteria makes this gap visible and gives clearer, more targeted feedback than a single combined score.

This separation also helps teachers spot whether a whole class is struggling more with recognizing devices or with explaining their significance, which points to two very different kinds of follow-up instruction.

Avoiding overly generous credit for correct terminology

A common grading pitfall is awarding strong marks simply because a student used the correct vocabulary term, even when the accompanying explanation is thin or generic. The rubric should make clear that terminology alone does not earn full credit without a specific, text-based explanation of effect.

Modeling one fully worked example, from device identification through to a complete analytical explanation, gives students a clear template to follow and reduces the frequency of this shallow-terminology pattern across a class set.

Applying the checklist consistently across sections

For departments with multiple sections of the same course, sharing this device checklist across all grading teachers helps ensure that a strong personification analysis earns the same credit in one classroom as it does in another, which matters for grade consistency across an entire grade level.

Revisiting the checklist periodically, and adjusting it based on which devices students actually engage with well versus which ones consistently produce weak analysis, keeps the tool useful rather than static from year to year.