The Knife of Never Letting Go

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text throughout your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Todd says in the novel that a man without a filter is “chaos walking.”

• What does Todd mean when he describes men without a filter as “chaos walking”? (topic sentence)
• Explain why it is important for the men in New World to have a filter, what Todd means when he describes those without one as “chaos walking,” and how Todd’s statement relates to the novel’s theme of Imposing Order on Chaos.
• In your concluding sentences, explain how Noise has created chaos in the New World rather than unity.

2. In the novel, the mayor plays an important role as an authoritarian leader.

• What does the mayor do to control the people of Prentisstown? (topic sentence)
• Explain how the mayor uses the banishment of literacy, his attempts to control neighboring villages, and the rituals imposed on coming-of-age boys to maintain control of Prentisstown.