Lois Lowry uses color, and the return of color, as one of the novel's central symbols, along with recurring images like the apple and the sled that mark Jonas's growing ability to see beyond Sameness. Essays on symbolism are common in Giver units, but they vary wildly in quality depending on how well students understand what a symbol actually does in a text.

The most common weakness in symbolism essays is identification without interpretation: a student correctly notes that the apple changes color for Jonas but never explains what that change represents about his developing perception. Grading needs to distinguish clearly between spotting a symbol and actually analyzing it.

A stronger essay traces a symbol's development across multiple appearances rather than analyzing a single instance. The color red, for example, appears with the apple, with Fiona's hair, and eventually with the sled at the climax, and tracking that progression shows a more sophisticated understanding than a single-scene analysis.

Grading criteria should reward this kind of tracking explicitly, since it reflects a genuine grasp of how symbolism functions as a developing thread through a novel rather than a one-time literary device.

Identification Versus Interpretation

A useful diagnostic during grading is to ask whether the essay could be summarized as "X is a symbol for Y" without any further explanation. If so, the essay likely needs to push further into why that symbolic connection matters to the novel's larger argument about Sameness and individuality.

• Check whether the essay explains why a symbol matters, not just what it represents
• Reward essays that track a symbol across multiple scenes rather than one
• Look for connections between the symbol and the novel's central themes
• Flag essays that mix up cause and effect in how the symbol develops
• Prioritize precise textual evidence over general claims about the symbol

Handling Ambiguous Symbols

Some of the novel's symbolism is genuinely ambiguous, particularly around the ending, where the meaning of light and cold is left open to interpretation. Grading should not penalize a well-argued but unconventional interpretation of an ambiguous symbol, as long as the argument is supported by specific textual evidence.

This is an area where rubric flexibility matters more than usual, since a rigid answer key approach to symbolism essays can unfairly penalize students who have engaged thoughtfully with a genuinely open question in the text.

Feedback for Symbolism Essays

For essays that identify a symbol without interpreting it, feedback that asks the student to finish the sentence "this matters because..." after their initial observation often unlocks the analytical step that was missing from the first draft.

Providing a brief model of tracked symbolism, showing how one symbol develops across three specific scenes, gives students a concrete template to follow when revising their own less developed analysis.

Building Symbolism Analysis Into Future Units

The skill of tracking a developing symbol across a text is directly transferable to nearly every other novel students will read in subsequent grades, which makes investing in strong feedback here worthwhile beyond just this single unit.

Keeping a running list of which symbols students engage with most successfully in The Giver can also help shape which symbols get emphasized in class discussion the following year, focusing instructional time where it tends to produce the strongest essays.