There is a real difference between a Gatsby essay prompt that invites summary and one that demands argument. "Discuss the theme of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby" is technically a prompt, but it gives a student almost nothing to argue against. Stronger prompts force a student to take a position that another careful reader could reasonably contest, which is what pushes writing into genuine literary analysis.

Prompt design matters as much as grading design, because a weak prompt makes even a strong rubric hard to apply. If every student can technically satisfy the assignment by restating the plot in order, the rubric ends up rewarding summary skills instead of analytical ones.

The fifteen topics below are organized loosely from character-driven to thematic to structural, giving departments a range to pull from depending on whether the unit is focused on close reading, thematic analysis, or comparative work.

Each topic is written as an arguable claim starter rather than an open question, which tends to produce sharper thesis statements from students who otherwise default to vague, five-paragraph-formula writing.

Character and Motivation Prompts

Character prompts work best when they ask students to evaluate a choice or a contradiction rather than simply describe a personality. "Is Gatsby's love for Daisy genuine, or is Daisy a symbol he has constructed to justify his reinvention?" gives students two defensible positions to choose between, which is exactly the kind of tension that produces strong theses.

• Is Jay Gatsby a romantic idealist or a self-deceiving opportunist, and does the distinction matter?
• How reliable is Nick Carraway as a narrator, and what does his unreliability reveal about the novel's themes?
• Does Daisy Buchanan have genuine agency, or is she constrained entirely by the men around her?
• What does Tom Buchanan's cruelty reveal about the limits of old money morality in the novel?
• Is Jordan Baker a cynic, a realist, or something the novel never fully resolves?

Thematic and Symbolic Prompts

Thematic prompts hold up best when they are narrowed to a specific claim rather than left as broad topics. Instead of "discuss wealth in the novel," a stronger version asks students to argue whether Fitzgerald presents old money and new money as morally distinct or equally hollow, which forces engagement with specific scenes rather than general impressions.

Symbol-based prompts, like tracing the green light or the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg across the novel, work well as close reading assignments because they require students to track a single image through multiple chapters and argue for a consistent interpretation.

Structural and Craft-Based Prompts

Prompts focused on Fitzgerald's craft, such as his use of nonlinear time or his choice of a peripheral narrator, tend to produce the most sophisticated essays from advanced students because they require thinking about the novel as a constructed text rather than a set of events. These work particularly well in AP Literature classrooms where students are already comfortable analyzing narrative technique.

Departments that rotate these fifteen prompts across terms, rather than reusing the same two or three every year, also make it harder for students to find pre-written analysis online, which tends to raise the overall quality of submitted work.

Matching Prompts to Grading Criteria

Every prompt on this list is written to pair cleanly with a thesis-evidence-analysis rubric, since each one demands a defensible claim rather than a description. That alignment matters more than it might seem: a rubric built for argumentative writing applied to a descriptive prompt will consistently under-score students through no real fault of their own.

Teachers building a Gatsby unit from scratch often find it easier to choose the rubric first and then select prompts that actually test what the rubric measures, rather than the reverse.