"Tomorrow" follows a widowed mother, Shan Sizi, whose small son Baoer falls ill and dies despite her efforts to find a doctor. The neighbors who help her, including Wang Jiuma and Blue Skin, are not villains, yet their presence has an unsettling edge. Because the subject is a child's death, student essays on this story require both emotional care and careful standards.

Students may feel hesitant to analyze a story this sad, as though dissecting it is disrespectful. It helps to say plainly in class that close reading is a way of taking the story seriously, not a way of avoiding its feeling. Setting that tone early makes it easier for students to write with both empathy and precision.

The story is also a useful counterweight to more openly satirical pieces such as "Ah Q." Its irony is gentler, and its critique appears in the way ordinary people behave around suffering. Asking students to compare the two approaches can lead to excellent essays about how tone shapes meaning.

Reward attention to detail and absence

Much of the story's power comes from small domestic details and from what the narration does not say. The quiet house after Baoer's death, the weight of the mother's exhaustion, and the use of the word tomorrow all carry meaning. Essays that notice these choices show that students are reading the text as crafted writing, which is what a literary rubric should reward.

• Examines how the narration handles the mother's isolation
• Considers the motives and limits of the neighbors who assist her
• Analyzes the role of the doctor and the commercial nature of treatment
• Interprets the significance of the title and the idea of tomorrow
• Discusses how restraint in tone intensifies the sadness

Support students who write from personal experience

Some students will connect the story to a loss of their own, and a few may disclose it in an essay. Respond to that with a brief, human note and then return to the assignment, rather than grading the experience itself. You can quietly let the school counselor know if something in an essay raises concern, following your school's guidelines.

Offering a choice of prompts is a practical way to respect different comfort levels. One option can focus on structure and tone, while another focuses on the social dynamics among the neighbors. Giving students agency often leads to stronger work than assigning a single emotional angle.

Watch for sentimental overreach

Essays on tragic stories sometimes drift into emotional language that lacks evidence, such as saying the story is heartbreaking without explaining how it achieves that effect. Feedback can ask which sentence in the text produced the response and what technique made it work. Over time, students learn to turn feeling into analysis.

A good revision exercise is to have students highlight every emotional word in their draft and replace half of them with a specific textual detail. The essay usually becomes shorter, sharper, and more persuasive. It also makes grading easier because claims are anchored in quotations.

Plan a manageable grading workflow

Because the story is short, essays tend to be shorter too, which makes it suitable for a quick-turnaround assignment. Grade for thesis, evidence, and tone analysis only, and skip a full mechanics review unless errors interfere with meaning. A focused rubric lets you return work quickly while the discussion is still fresh.

Pair the assignment with a one-paragraph reflection in which students describe what they changed between drafts. That reflection gives you insight into their reasoning and helps you decide where to focus next. It also builds the habit of treating writing as a process.