Character arc essays are a staple assignment for The Old Man and the Sea, but they carry a hidden complication that trips up a lot of grading rubrics: it's genuinely debatable whether Santiago changes much over the course of the novella at all. Some students argue he grows in humility, others argue he ends the book essentially the same man he started as, just physically depleted.

A grading rubric built only around "identify how Santiago changes" implicitly penalizes students who make the more sophisticated argument that he doesn't change much, or that his change is subtle and internal rather than dramatic. That's a real problem when the more nuanced answer is arguably the more defensible one.

The fix is to write the prompt and rubric around the strength of the argument rather than a specific expected conclusion. A well-supported case for minimal change should score as high as a well-supported case for significant growth, because the skill being assessed is argumentation, not agreement with a predetermined reading.

This also opens up richer classroom discussion, since students defending different positions can genuinely challenge each other's evidence rather than simply restating a version of what the teacher already said in class.

What to Look for in Strong Responses

Regardless of which position a student takes, the strongest essays tend to track specific moments: Santiago's private conversations with the fish, his memories of arm wrestling as a young man, and his final walk home carrying the mast. These moments give the essay concrete evidence points that a vague thematic reading skips over.

• A clear thesis about the nature and degree of Santiago's change
• Evidence from at least three distinct points in the narrative timeline
• Attention to Santiago's own self-perception, not just external plot events
• Consideration of Manolin's perspective on Santiago as external evidence
• A conclusion that connects the character arc to a larger theme rather than just summarizing it

Common Weak Spots

The weakest essays on this prompt usually pick one dramatic moment, often the final battle with the sharks, and treat it as the entire arc, ignoring everything that came before it. That produces a thin argument that reads more like a scene analysis than a character study.

Another common weakness is conflating physical decline with psychological or moral change. Santiago is clearly more exhausted at the end of the novella, but exhaustion alone isn't evidence of a changed worldview, and essays need to draw that distinction explicitly to earn full credit.

Grading Efficiently Without Flattening Nuance

Because this prompt allows for genuinely different valid conclusions, it's tempting to grade it holistically and skip a detailed rubric altogether. That usually backfires, since holistic grading without clear criteria tends to unconsciously reward whichever position the teacher personally finds more persuasive.

A criteria-based rubric that separates thesis clarity, evidence, and argument coherence from the specific position taken keeps grading fair across a class that's genuinely split on the central question.

Using Student Disagreement as a Teaching Tool

Once essays are graded, sharing a few strong examples from both sides of the debate, with names removed, tends to generate more classroom engagement than reviewing a single "model" essay that implies there's only one correct interpretation.

This approach also signals to students that literary analysis rewards well-supported reasoning over guessing the teacher's preferred answer, a lesson that carries well beyond this single assignment.