Teachers often spend hours grading essays that were doomed by the prompt. A question like "discuss the themes of Catch-22" invites a sprawling tour of everything the student remembers. Grading that kind of essay is slow because there is no clear target to measure against.

A better prompt narrows the task without dictating the answer. It asks students to take a position on a specific question that the novel really supports arguing about, such as how Heller uses bureaucratic logic to show institutions protecting themselves. Students still have room to disagree with each other, but every essay is answering the same question.

That shared target is what makes grading efficient. When forty essays respond to one focused question, you develop a sense of what strong evidence looks like and you can spot thin arguments quickly. It also makes feedback more consistent across sections.

Catch-22 is a generous book for prompt writers. It has recurring motifs, a huge cast of characters who each represent a piece of a broken system, and a structure that changes how you understand earlier scenes. The trick is choosing a lens narrow enough to handle in five paragraphs.

What Makes a Prompt Gradable

A gradable prompt has three qualities. It asks for an argument rather than a description, it points students toward a manageable slice of the text, and it makes clear what kind of evidence counts. If you cannot imagine two reasonable students disagreeing, the prompt is probably asking for a summary.

• Ask how or why, not what happened
• Name a specific lens, such as institutions, language, or loyalty
• Limit the scope to a set of characters or chapters when needed
• State the expected evidence, such as three passages from different sections
• Leave room for more than one defensible answer

Prompts That Invite Summary, and How to Fix Them

Watch for prompts that sound analytical but reward recall. Asking students to describe how Yossarian changes over the course of the novel tends to yield plot retellings. Reframing it as a question about whether his final decision resolves the conflict the novel builds pushes students to take a stand and defend it.

Character-focused prompts work well when they include a comparison. Asking how Milo Minderbinder and Colonel Cathcart each reflect a different kind of institutional greed gives students a built-in structure. It also gives you a clean way to check whether the analysis is balanced.

Matching Prompts to Course Level

A ninth grade class and an AP Literature class should not get the same question. Younger or less experienced writers benefit from a prompt that specifies the passages and the literary device, while advanced students can handle open-ended questions about the novel's larger purpose. Adjusting the prompt is often more effective than adjusting the rubric.

Keep a small bank of prompts at different difficulty levels. That lets you serve honors, on-level, and support sections without inventing a new assignment each time. It also lets you rotate prompts from year to year so essays stay fresh.

Write the Prompt and Rubric Together

Draft the rubric while you write the question. If the prompt asks for analysis of institutional satire, the rubric should have a line for exactly that. When the two documents are misaligned, students follow the prompt and you grade against the rubric, and everyone ends up frustrated.

This pairing also helps when you use an AI feedback tool like GraideMind. The tool works from the criteria you supply, so a focused prompt paired with a matching rubric yields feedback that speaks directly to the question students were asked. That keeps the comments useful instead of generic.