Teachers who run a Lewis unit often pair Till We Have Faces with a shorter work, such as The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, or one of the Narnia books. The pairing makes a natural essay assignment, since Lewis returns to self-deception, pride, and the cost of refusing to see clearly across his career. It also doubles the reading load for graders, who now have to judge two texts and the connection between them.

The central difficulty with cross-text essays is that students default to surface similarities. They notice that both books contain a character who clings to a false version of herself, then stop, treating the observation as the argument. A strong essay goes further and explains how each book handles the idea differently, and what that difference shows about Lewis's methods. Teachers can prevent this by asking in the prompt for at least one difference alongside every similarity.

Rubrics should therefore reward the quality of the comparison itself, separate from the quality of each individual reading. A student can analyze Orual well and Screwtape poorly, or the reverse, and the grade should reflect where the real thinking happened. Splitting these rows prevents one strong half from hiding a weak connection. It also gives feedback a clearer target, because the student can see whether the comparison or the individual reading needs work.

Setting Clear Expectations for the Comparison

Students need to know whether they are expected to find a shared theme, contrast two approaches, or argue that one text illuminates the other. Each of these is a legitimate task, but they require different structures, and a vague prompt leaves students guessing. Stating the task in the prompt and in the rubric makes the assignment fairer and the papers easier to grade.

• The thesis makes a claim about the relationship between the two works
• Each text receives substantive, specific evidence rather than a summary
• Differences in form, such as letters or dream vision, are treated as meaningful
• The essay explains why the pairing reveals something neither text shows alone
• Transitions between texts are smooth and logical rather than abrupt

Watching for Imbalance Between the Two Texts

Students almost always write more about the longer or more familiar book. In this pairing, that usually means Till We Have Faces dominates and the second work appears only briefly, like a visiting guest. Feedback should point out the imbalance and ask the writer to find an equivalent depth of evidence in the shorter text. Pointing it out early gives students time to rebalance the draft instead of discovering the problem in their final grade.

A useful rubric rule is to require at least two specific moments from each text in every body paragraph or in at least most of them. That requirement forces the comparison to happen in the paragraphs themselves rather than in a summary at the end. It also makes the grader's job easier, since the structure is visible at a glance.

Making Sense of Differences in Genre

Lewis wrote in very different forms across his career, and the best essays notice that form shapes meaning. A confessional first-person novel like Till We Have Faces works differently from the satirical letters in Screwtape, and an essay that asks why Lewis chose each form shows real understanding. Graders should reward that kind of attention, even when the student's explanation is tentative.

Students who are unfamiliar with genre terminology may express these ideas in plain language, and that is fine. A sentence such as "Orual tells her own story, but Screwtape only gives advice to someone else" is a real observation about narration, even without technical vocabulary. Feedback can offer the term afterward, as a label for something the student already noticed.

Managing the Workload for Multi-Text Assignments

Cross-text essays take longer to grade, which makes planning important. Teachers can speed things up by scoring the comparison row first, since it determines the paper's overall level, and then reading for the other criteria. Papers with a weak comparison can usually be placed in a band quickly, while strong ones deserve the closer reading. Planning for that extra time at the start of the unit keeps the return date realistic and the feedback thoughtful.

AI-assisted tools can help by checking whether each text is cited in every body paragraph and flagging papers where one text is missing for long stretches. That flag takes seconds, and it identifies the exact feedback many students need. The teacher can then spend the saved time on the more interesting question of whether the student's comparison is actually insightful.