In The Death of Artemio Cruz, Fuentes narrates through three grammatical persons: a first-person voice in the present, a second-person voice that speaks to Artemio about the future, and a third-person voice that recounts his past. Students almost always notice this device, and many build whole essays around it. The difficulty for the grader is that noticing is not the same as interpreting, and feedback has to nudge students toward the second skill.

A common weak essay opens by announcing that the novel uses three narrators and then proceeds to define each one. The paragraphs are accurate and tidy, but they stop at description and never ask what the technique does to a reader's sense of Artemio. Feedback on this kind of paper should say plainly that the labeling is correct and then request the missing step, which is an explanation of effect.

Another frequent problem is treating the voices as separate people rather than as facets of one consciousness fighting to organize its own life. Students who make that mistake tend to attribute opinions to "the narrator" without noting which voice holds them. A margin comment asking "whose perspective is this, and what does it know that the others do not?" prompts a more careful reading than a correction would.

Move Students From Labeling to Interpreting

The most useful feedback is a question that cannot be answered with a plot detail. Asking why the second-person voice appears when Artemio is least willing to admit a failure, or why the third person narrates the Revolution while the first person lingers on the body, pushes students to connect form to meaning. These questions model the habits of mind you want in the final draft, and they work well in short comments because they invite revision rather than closing it off.

• Praise accurate identification of each voice, then ask what it accomplishes
• Flag claims attributed to "the narrator" without naming the voice
• Ask students to connect a shift in voice to a shift in Artemio's honesty
• Point out where a quotation is cited but not analyzed
• Suggest one paragraph where the argument could be sharpened

Use Short Model Comments

Many instructors find it helpful to keep a small bank of model comments for recurring issues, adjusting each one to the student's actual sentence. A reusable prompt such as "You describe the voice accurately; now explain what Artemio cannot say aloud that this voice can" saves time and still reads as personal. Revising the wording each term keeps the comments from sounding canned and lets you respond to what students are actually writing.

Be careful not to overload a single paper with every possible observation. Choose the two or three issues that would most improve the argument, and mention smaller problems briefly or not at all. Students who receive fifteen comments typically address the easiest ones and ignore the central weakness, which defeats the purpose of detailed feedback.

Connect Voice to Theme and History

Strong essays tie the narrative technique to the novel's larger concerns, such as the gap between public power and private conscience or the way memory reorganizes a violent history. Encourage students to show how a shift in voice coincides with a revelation, for example when the narration moves from Artemio's polished self-image to the choices he made during the Revolution. Feedback that names this connection tells students what the highest level of work looks like.

Rubric-based tools such as GraideMind can help apply this standard across a full section by flagging essays that describe the voices without analyzing them. Instructors still decide how to phrase the follow-up and which students need a conversation rather than a comment. The tool surfaces the pattern quickly, which is especially useful when thirty or more essays make the same descriptive move.

Close the Loop With Revision

Feedback matters only if students use it, so build a revision step into the assignment. Ask for a short note explaining what changed in response to your comments, which forces students to engage with the questions you posed. Even a brief reflection of a few sentences reveals whether they understood the difference between describing a voice and interpreting it.

Over the course of a unit, you should see the framing of thesis statements shift from announcing the technique to arguing about its consequences. That change is a good indicator that your feedback is working. If it is not happening, revisit the questions you ask, since they may be too general to guide a student toward a stronger claim.