Frost in May is set in an English convent school in the early twentieth century, and the historical background shapes nearly every scene. Students who understand that world can read Nanda's experience with far more depth than those who treat the convent as a generic strict school. Yet many essays handle context poorly, opening with a paragraph of background facts and then never connecting them to the text. Grading this skill requires looking at how context is used, not just whether it appears.

A useful distinction is between decorative context and functional context. Decorative context states that Catholic convert families faced social pressure in England at the time and stops there. Functional context uses that fact to explain why Nanda's father's recent conversion makes her feel eager to prove her devotion, which in turn shapes her behavior in the classroom. Reward the second kind more heavily.

Be careful about what you expect students to know. Many modern readers have little sense of how a convent boarding school operated, so the unit itself should supply the background through short readings or discussion. Grading context fairly means assessing what you actually taught. Penalizing students for outside knowledge you never covered measures their access to resources more than their reading.

Descriptors for Context in Your Rubric

Write the context criterion around use rather than quantity. A high-level descriptor might say that the student integrates historical or religious background to illuminate specific moments in the text, while a lower level says background is mentioned in isolation. Avoid counting facts, since a student can pack in many details without understanding any of them. The goal is to see context working inside an argument.

• Does the student link a historical fact to a specific scene?
• Is the background accurate and drawn from class materials?
• Does context deepen the claim or simply decorate it?
• Does the student avoid judging the past only by present standards?
• Are sources of outside information acknowledged when used?

Common Problems to Watch For

Presentism is the most frequent weakness. Students may condemn the nuns as cruel without considering the educational and religious assumptions of the period, which flattens a more ambiguous portrait. Others fall into the opposite error and excuse everything as simply being of its time. Strong essays hold both truths, acknowledging the harm and explaining the system that produced it.

Another issue is confusing the author with the narrator. Antonia White drew on her own convent schooling, which tempts students to treat every event as documented fact. A short comment reminding them that the novel is a fictionalized account helps them distinguish biography from literary craft. This distinction is a good habit for any autobiographical fiction.

Feedback That Builds Context Skills

When a student includes a background paragraph that floats free of the argument, ask where in the text that fact would change the reading. Suggesting they move a sentence about convent discipline next to the scene it explains is often enough to transform the essay. Students usually grasp the idea quickly once shown. The revision also improves their paragraph structure.

For classes with many essays, a tool such as GraideMind can flag paragraphs where context appears without textual support, giving you a head start on this specific comment. You can then focus on the interpretive conversations that matter most. Consistent attention to how context is used helps students become more disciplined readers. That skill carries into history, philosophy, and any course that asks them to place a text in its time.