The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife - What is the Story About?
Not in every children’s book, a 12-year old boy kills a man (albeit inadvertently) in the first chapter, let alone have a protagonist declare that this boy is trustworthy because (not despite) he is a murderer. Will and Lyra meet in Cittàgazze after Will stumbles upon a window connecting his Oxford to Cittàgazze. Both Lyra and Will are on a quest. Lyra is guided by her magic compass, alethiometer, which prompts her to look for a Scholar in Will’s Oxford in order for her to learn more about Dust. Will is in search of his father who disappeared during an expedition north. There is a sense of suspense throughout the book, for Will is being pursued by men in search of some documents that his father left and there is also a powerful man who is after Lyra and her alethiometer. Lyra and Will discover that there are no adults in the city of Cittàgazze because there are monsters called Specters and they eat adults’ dæmons (Pullman depicts dæmons as a fundamental element that makes people think and feel). In the course of their journey, Will becomes a bearer of the Subtle Knife, which allows him to open a window between different worlds (for example, between his own Oxford and Lyra’s Oxford). The story ends with Lyra being taken by her pursuers and Will meeting his father (although his father does not recognize Will as his son) who tells him that Will must go to Lord Asriel and fight in the impending war on Lord Asriel’s side. (Pullman, 1997)
The Subtle Knife - Why this Book for Junior Readers?
While the first book in the series, The Golden Compass could have replaced The Subtle Knife, which is the second book in the series on this list, I chose The Subtle Knife because an already rather dark story which is set up in The Golden Compass gets even darker in the second book. Also, I do think the each book can stand mostly on its own. Throughout the series, it becomes more and more apparent that Pullman does not shelter children from ugly facets of the world they live in, nor does he shield them from the full extent of the cruelty of adults. Therefore, His Dark Materials series is not a story for the faint hearted. Pullman is subversive. It is not a fairy tale where a happily ever after awaits at the end of a dark tunnel. That being said, at the school where I am doing my Practicum, the Grade 7 students are absolutely intrigued by Robinson Well’s Variant. Even the most fidgety students in the class are captivated by the story and I believe that it is the suspense that is keeping them hooked. From this observation, I would hazard a guess that students will be drawn to darker, edgier, and suspenseful stories than stories about happy shiny people or downright didactic and formulaic stories.
Walking down a street when dense fog swallows up the whole city, I feel the air with my hands, a little sheepishly but with a little bit of anticipation, in search of a little disturbance in the air, a subtle break in the air. Of course, there never is anything and the world stays so unimaginatively ordinary. As I quietly laugh at my own silliness, I also smile because I know that I have not lost my imagination, a sense of wonder, my playful hope that there may be some magic in this world. If I am still taken with the story this much, 20-odd-years after I have first read the story in elementary school, I think this book has the power to capture children of today.
The Subtle Knife - What can be done in a Classroom with this Book?
Idea #1: A Mock Trial of Heroes & Villains
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Rationale: Pullman is a not writer who makes the question of good and evil even the remotest bit straightforward or one-dimensional. In examining Pullman’s characters, we would risk passing a superficial judgement if we were to label anyone as good only because the character is against the enemy of the protagonists. The moral ambiguity that arises from Pullman’s writing is likely to spark some interesting questions and discussion in class.
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Students will have an introductory lesson on making inferences using supporting evidence from the texts as well as on making connections between what is in the text to issues that students themselves deal in their daily lives.
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Following this introductory lesson, students will label characters in the story either as a hero or a villain. This activity will be done as a class activity. If there are characters that many students think “both” or “neither”, these characters will be marked “grey”. This should be a quick activity.
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Students will then be divided into pairs and each group will either be assigned or choose one character from each category (hero, villain, grey). Students will be tasked to find commonalities between the “heroes” and “villains” (and “greys”). The goal is for students to learn to approach a text as a detective so that they can understand the nuanced workings of characters’ hearts and mind. [e.g. Will kills a man; Lyra has a “gift” for lying; Serafina Pekkala kills a witch under torture by Mrs. Coulter and calls it merciful; Stanislaus Grumman will have no moral qualms about betraying someone’s trust for the greater good, etc.] If students can disagree with a decision or an action of a character but are still able to explain what makes the character act in such a way and show empathy towards the character, this will be an ideal outcome.
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Depending on the maturity of the class as a whole, something like a mock trial may be introduced so that students could dissect and judge the morality of characters. For example, students may be divided into groups of 4. Two groups will form a team. Each team (two groups) will be assigned an action of a decision made by a character, which is morally questionable. One group within the team will defend and the other group will prosecute the character. Students will analyse the characters, explain why they did what they did, and justify or criticize their actions. After a short mock trial (each group will be given 3 minutes to present their case and 2 minutes to counter), the whole class will discuss whether they agree or disagree with the decision/action the character have taken.
Idea #2: Deduce What Happened in the First Book – “Elementary, my dear Watson!”
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Students will have an introductory lesson on making inferences using supporting evidence from the texts as well as on making connections within the text.
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Following this introductory lesson, because we are dealing with the second book in a trilogy, students will don a Sherlock Holmes hat and deduce what might have happened in the first book.
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Students will be divided into pairs or groups of three and deduce what might have happened to their assigned character in the first book. Students will be assigned characters such as Lyra, Serafina Pekkala, Lee Scoresby who also appear in the first book and they will write down at least 4 pieces of fragmented information within the text that refer to what happened to their respective characters or what their characters may have witnessed in the first book.
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From these 4 fragmented pieces of information, they will construct a one-paragraph hypothesis of what could have happened in the first book and they will support their predictions with evidence from the text. Since a few groups will be assigned the same character, they will then form a bigger group in order to compare and contrast their findings and predictions. Each group will share the evaluations of each prediction within their group with the whole class.
The Subtle Knife - Curriculum Connections
There are a few specific expectations from The Ontario Ministry of Education Language Curriculum 1-8 (2006) the study of this book will meet:
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Grade 7 Reading strand 1.1 and 1.4 state that students will be introduced to variety of literary texts from different cultures and students will learn to make inferences and to interpret texts using what is in the texts to support their inferences/interpretations (p. 127). --> Idea #1 & Idea #2
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Grade 8 Reading strand 1.6 states that students will learn to be able to extend their interpretations of the texts and connect their understandings from the texts to their own experiences, thoughts, and the world around them (p. 142). --> Idea #1 & Idea #2
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Grade 7 Oral Communication strand 1.2 and 1.3 state that students will learn to identify and adapt respectful and effective listening strategies so that they can listen to their classmates without interrupting them and show interest and empathy while listening to others (p. 124). --> Idea #1 & Idea #2
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Grade 8 Oral Communication strand 1.2 states that students will continue to identify and adapt respectful and effective listening strategies so that they could follow their classmates’ arguments critically and ask clarifying questions to solidify their comprehensions (p. 138). --> Idea #1 & Idea #2