"Kong Yiji" follows a failed scholar who drinks at the Xianheng Tavern, is mocked by the customers, and eventually disappears after having his legs broken. The story is told through the eyes of a young tavern waiter, which shapes how readers feel about both the scholar and the crowd. Students usually respond with sympathy, and a good grading approach rewards that response while demanding more than sympathy.

Essays on this story tend to cluster around a few themes: the cruelty of the crowd, the failure of the examination system, and the narrator's complicity. All three are legitimate, but the strongest essays usually combine them instead of choosing only one. Your rubric should allow room for that kind of synthesis rather than rewarding a single predictable argument.

Because the story is short, students can quote nearly every important moment, which makes it ideal for practicing precise evidence selection. You can ask them to limit themselves to three quotations and justify each one in a full paragraph. That constraint tends to improve the quality of analysis because it forces students to choose rather than pile up quotations.

Reward attention to the narrator

The young waiter is easy to overlook, yet his position is central to the story's meaning. He watches the scholar being laughed at, joins the laughter in small ways, and only later reflects on what happened. Essays that notice this complicity show a more sophisticated reading than those that treat the narrator as a neutral camera.

• Does the essay explain why Lu Xun uses a young waiter instead of an omniscient narrator?
• Does it connect Kong Yiji's long gown and classical speech to his social isolation?
• Does it analyze the debate over whether stealing books counts as theft?
• Does it consider how the crowd's laughter functions as a form of social control?
• Does it address the ambiguous final line about whether he is dead?

Watch for overgeneralizations about class

Students sometimes claim that the story proves the poor are cruel or that the educated are doomed, neither of which the text supports on its own. Feedback should ask them to point to the specific characters and moments that justify such a statement. Many students quickly realize that the customers are a varied group and that the story offers a more careful portrait than a slogan can capture.

Encourage students to treat Kong Yiji himself as a complicated figure, not only a victim. He is pedantic, boasts about his learning, and steals, yet he is also gentle with the children who gather around him. A paper that holds both truths at once is usually doing the kind of analysis you want to reward.

Give feedback that improves the next draft

Comments that simply say "good point" or "unclear" do not help a student rewrite. Try identifying the one claim in the essay that has the most potential and asking the student to expand it with a second piece of evidence. That approach respects what the student already did well while pointing toward growth.

For a class of thirty or more, consider grading the first paragraph and thesis closely, then skimming the remainder for the same pattern of strengths and weaknesses. Early paragraphs tend to reveal whether a student understands the assignment, and focusing your time there often yields the most useful commentary. You can then reserve deeper line-by-line feedback for revision.

Connect the story to the rest of the collection

Advanced students can compare Kong Yiji with figures like Chen Shicheng in "The White Light," who also spends his life chasing success through the examination system. Such comparisons help students see that Call to Arms is a collection with recurring concerns, not a series of unrelated stories. Offering this option as an extension keeps the base assignment accessible.

If you assign a comparative essay later in the unit, return the Kong Yiji paper with a note about which ideas could be carried forward. Students often forget their earlier insights unless you remind them. Building on prior work also makes grading faster, since you already know each student's strengths and habits.