The Knife of Never Letting Go

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. How might people describe authoritarian societies? What is the difference between authoritarian forms of government and other types? What challenges might someone face who lives in an authoritarian society? How might authoritarian governments maintain support from their populations?

Teaching Suggestion: The protagonist, Todd, lives in an authoritarian society in his home village, where only men exist. The village maintains control through closely guarded secrets and isolation. Class discussion might generate examples of what an authoritarian society is, the challenges it might face, and how authoritarian leaders garner support for their cause.

• This article describes authoritarianism in political systems.
• This article describes how authoritarian governments maintain their regimes.

2. What challenges might face those who settle in areas for the first time? Why might settlers experience lawlessness? What disadvantages might those without a unified and organized government have? What was life like for settlers in more recent history?

Teaching Suggestion: Todd is part of the recently settled New World, a planet far from Earth. The inhabitants of New World are often victims of brutal living conditions and vigilante justice caused by Noise, a consequence of the atmosphere that causes men’s thoughts to be heard by all. The Noise caused the citizens of Prentisstown to murder their women, causing neighboring cities to isolate themselves from the residents of Prentisstown. Consider encouraging students to draw comparisons between what they know about the settlement of the New World in America, the Dark Ages, and other periods in history without unified governments.

• This article explains what life was like for early settlers in Jamestown.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the novel.

Describe a time when you were conscious of or overwhelmed by noises in your surroundings. Do you have a high tolerance for noisy surroundings or a low tolerance? What would it be like if you could hear everyone’s thoughts? What coping mechanisms might you develop to deal with your noisy surroundings? Would it be difficult or easier to learn if you shared thoughts?

Teaching Suggestion: The novel’s protagonist, Todd, lives in a world where men can hear each other’s thoughts because of a disease that Spackles, an alien race native to the New World, gave them. Students may wish to speculate about the difficulty of living in a world where one’s thoughts aren’t private.