The tree at Devon School is probably the most heavily assigned symbol in all of high school English, and for good reason. It marks the site of Finny's fall, functions as a test of courage, and shifts meaning across the novel from a place of youthful daring to a site of guilt and reckoning.

Because the tree symbol is so heavily taught, student essays often repeat the same surface-level observation that the tree represents danger or a rite of passage, without pushing further into how its meaning changes as the novel progresses. A strong rubric should specifically reward students who trace that evolution rather than stopping at the first interpretation.

The river separating the two campuses, along with the seasonal shift from the carefree summer session to the harsher winter session, offers additional symbolic material that fewer students explore but that often produces more original essays.

A well-designed rubric nudges students toward these less obvious symbols and rewards original observations, rather than simply rewarding correct identification of the most commonly taught one.

What to Reward in a Symbolism Essay

Strong symbolism essays connect the symbol to a specific character arc or theme rather than treating it as an isolated literary device. They also track how the symbol's meaning shifts across the novel instead of freezing it at a single moment.

• Traces how the symbol's meaning changes from the beginning to the end of the novel
• Connects the symbol directly to a character's internal conflict, not just plot events
• Uses precise textual evidence rather than paraphrased summary
• Avoids overreaching claims that the symbol represents something the text does not support
• Explains why the symbol matters to the novel's larger themes of guilt and identity

Grading the Difference Between Identification and Analysis

Many students can correctly identify that the tree is a symbol, but far fewer can explain what that symbol is doing for the story at a given moment. Rubrics that separate identification from analysis as distinct scoring categories make this gap visible and gradable.

This separation also gives more precise feedback to students, since a paper that identifies symbols correctly but never analyzes them needs a very different note than one that misidentifies the symbolism entirely.

Encouraging Original Symbol Choices

Offering students a short list of possible symbols beyond the tree, such as the river, the changing seasons, or Finny's pink shirt, tends to produce more varied and interesting essays. It also makes grading less repetitive, since not every paper is analyzing the same passage.

Building in a small bonus for original symbol choices, or simply allowing students to propose their own with teacher approval, can meaningfully raise the overall quality of a class set.

Using Feedback Tools to Spot Repetition

When grading thirty or more essays on the same symbol, it becomes easy to lose track of which specific insight has already been rewarded and which is genuinely new. AI-assisted grading tools can flag when an essay is repeating a commonly seen observation, which helps teachers apply originality standards more consistently.

This kind of consistency matters most in large sections or across multiple class periods, where the same teacher may otherwise unintentionally grade the same idea differently depending on when in the stack it appears.