THE PHANTOM

TOLLBOOTH
LESSON 3
1961
Norton Juster
Fantasy/Children

lesson plan by Robert A Taylor

COURSE OBJECTIVES

• Students will read The Phantom Tollbooth.

• Students will study and discuss the pre-

outlined text in a literary manner.

• Students will analyze and interpret the text

for literary devices, deeper meanings and
context.

• Students will connect the text to their own

lives and the lives of the people when the
book was written.

• Students will use the persuasive writing style.

• Students will partake in chapter discussions.

LESSON 3
OBJECTIVES
• Figurative Language

• Symbols

• Chapters 6 and 7

• Theme 2: Time
PURSUASIVE
TOPICS? • What are some topics that you can think about, in the
book “The Phantom Tollbooth?

• Would you pursaude the reader about something, or

pursuade them against something?

• Would you focus on a character, a plot point, theme,

symbol, or something else?
FIGURATIVE • His nose end quivered like a _____________________

LANGUAGE • Dickon was as hungry as a ______________________

• Dickon was as tough as a _______________________

• They were as safe as a __________________________

• missel thrush

• white-thorn knobstick

• young fox

• rabbit’s
WHAT IS A
SYMBOL? • A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or
is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship.
Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by
creating linkages between otherwise very different concepts
and experiences. All communication (and data processing) is
achieved through the use of symbols. Symbols take the form of
words, sounds, gestures, ideas, or visual images and are used to
convey other ideas and beliefs.

• What are some symbols you know of?

 • Milo receives an important gift in nearly every landmark he hits
GIFTS on his journey through the Lands Beyond. If you’ve ever read
another quest story, you know that this isn’t unusual. Everywhere
a traveler stops, he’s likely to get a gift – whether in the form of an
object or just some much needed advice – from the residents of
that place.

• For Milo, each of the gifts he receives will turn out to be

important when he gets to the most dangerous part of his
journey: crossing the Mountains of Ignorance to reach the Castle
in the Air. Let’s take a closer look at the gifts themselves:

• From King Azaz, Milo gets a “box [with] all the words [the king]
know[s]” (8.64).

• From Alex Bing, he gets a telescope that shows “things as they

really are, not just as they seem to be” (11.25).

• From the Soundkeeper, he gets a collection of little noises

• From the Mathemagician he gets a pencil, his “own magic staff”

(16.70).

• What could gifts symbolise in the novel?

 • Each of these gifts helps Milo save himself and his friends from a
GIFTS terrible demon.

• So what’s the big deal? It’s just a bunch of objects. Or is it? If you
think about it, every time Milo uses one of these gifts, it feels like the
people Milo met earlier on his journey are coming back to help him
on his quest. It reminds Milo of the rest of his journey and reminds
us, as readers, just how far he’s come.

• One more thing: Have you ever heard the saying about a starving
man and fish? It goes something like this: Give a man a fish and he
eats for a day; teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime. Translation:
if you give a guy a fish to eat, he’ll have food for one day (not bad).
But if you can just teach him how to fish, he’ll be able to feed himself
forever (much better).

• Both King Azaz and the Mathemagician teach Milo how to fish,
rather than just giving him those fish to eat. What we mean is, they
give him tools that he can use to make the learning process his own.
It turns out learning is a process of discovery, not just a set of right
and wrong answers to recite from memory. Lesson learned!
CHAPTER 6: FAINTLY MACABRE’S STORY

WHO

WHAT

WHEN

WHY

WHERE

HOW
 Faintly Macabre tells the story of how the Kingdom of Wisdom was built by a prince who arrived by
ship on the Sea of Knowledge. The prince had two sons, and when they were older he told them
SUMMARY to grow the kingdom. One son built Dictionopolis and the other son “went north to the Mountains
of Ignorance and built Digitopolis.” They were the cities of words and numbers. The two brothers
were “suspicious and jealous. Each one tried to outdo the other.” They argued over which was more
important - words or numbers.

The king had always wanted a daughter. One day, he discovered a basket holding two baby girls with
golden hair. He named them Rhyme and Reason, and he and the queen raised them as their own.
After the king died, the two sons were responsible for taking care of the two princesses.
 Names are again cleverly constructed in this chapter. “Diction” refers to a choice of words, and “digits”
are numbers—making Dictionopolis and Digitopolis the perfect names for the city of words and the
OBJECTIVE city of numbers, respectively.

“Rhyme and reason” is a common phrase referring to logical reason or order—fitting names for the
characters who are able to resolve disputes peacefully. The characters Rhyme and Reason show that
both language and math are important; one should not be seen as more important or better than the
[Link] how similar they all are. They are identical and walk in unison as they each state a synonym
one after another.

Are the brothers Rivals? Why? Can they agree? What about the princessess?
• Faintly Macabre tells Milo and Tock that they can leave jail whenever they want, and shows them the
button on the wall that opens the door. They escape and are invited to the royal palace by the king’s
advisers.

• Milo expresses an interest in rescuing Rhyme and Reason from their Castle in the Air. This becomes
the main conflict in the book and sets in motion the plan to rescue the princesses.

•
DAILY EXERCISE:
Rhyme

Princess Sweet Rhyme is a gentle woman who has been forced by her brothers to live in exile in the
Castle in the Air. She and her sister have been banned because of their belief that numbers and words
are equally important. She believes in the power of learning, and her presence will help restore order
to the kingdom.

How is she different from Reason? Are they really seperate people or could they be the same? How do
they interact with Milo or each other, or even other characters?
CHAPTER 5: THE ROYAL BANQUET

WHO

WHAT

WHEN

WHY

WHERE

HOW
 Milo and Tock arrive at the palace and notice that it looks like a book. The other guests are the people
previously seen in the market place. When Officer Shrift sees Milo, he is surprised that six million years
SUMMARY have passed so quickly. King Azaz the Unabridged arrives and asks Milo to entertain everyone.

Milo says he can’t do anything entertaining, and the king tells him that his cabinet members are all
able to perform. The duke makes “mountains out of molehills,” the minister “splits hairs,” the count
“makes hay while the sun shines,” the earl “leaves no stone unturned,” and the undersecretary “hangs
by a thread.” Milo responds that he can count to a thousand, which disgusts the King, who cares only
about words.
SUMMARY
King Azaz the Unabridged is described as “the largest man Milo had ever seen.” This is a humorous allusion to his being
“unabridged.” He describes the kinds of things that the cabinet members can perform, such as hanging by a thread or making a
mountain out of a molehill.

These are all popular phrases and sayings, and it is funny to visualize someone actually doing these things. The banquet scene uses
the literal interpretation of phrases throughout, and the effect is quite funny. The guests’ words take physical form on the plates
that are brought to them, and they literally eat their words. Similarly, the half-baked ideas served for dessert are also clever plays on
common phrases. These are all foolish sayings that have no merit, so they’re only “half baked,” or not well thought out.
 The phrases used throughout this chapter are all examples of metaphorical language. They provide
OBJECTIVE humor because it is funny to think of expressions and metaphors being interpreted literally. For example,
the phrase “to make a mountain out of a molehill” means to make a big deal out of something trivial. As it
is used here, it means to literally make a mountain out of a molehill. This is a humorous use of language.

How does this fit into the story and theme of the book?

Do you think it makes it too silly or adds extra meaning?

Since English is not your first langauge, is it hard to find humor in these things?

What would be something similar in your own language?

 • A theme is a central topic, subject, or message within a book.
THEMES Themes can be divided into two categories: a work’s thematic
concept is what readers “think the work is about” and its thematic
statement being “what the work says about the subject”.

• What are some themes that you know about?

• Do you think you can learn from a theme?

 COMMON THEMES IN BOOKS
ANNOTATION: HOW TO
• Here are some common themes for you to look at, maybe they can help you remember more about
themes and which books/movies/shows/etc. you have seen them in.

• What are some themes you might see or expect in the book and why do you think they can be
important? There are two simple and important reasons that good readers
annotate text

1. Annotating helps readers comprehend and process text in the

moment.

2. Annotating helps readers retain and remember information

later.
TIME

• When The Phantom Tollbooth begins, Milo

takes a lot of things for granted, particularly
time. He doesn’t see the importance of time
and is always either wasting it or rushing
through it.

• He’s so bored, he can’t seem to make the

most of his moments. But during his journey
through the Lands Beyond, he meets people
who have very different attitudes toward
time. Some of them waste it, some of them
take advantage of it, and watching them do
these things helps

• Milo realize he really should value his time.

With the help of Tock, Milo learns that instead
of whiling away the hours complaining of
boredom, he can live life to the fullest by
going on adventures of the mind.
ABOUT LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION
What do you think time means in The Phantom
Tollbooth? That’s a big question, so tackle this one
first: is time important to these characters? Who
values time? Who wastes it?

According to the book, why is it important not to

waste time?

What would happen if time really could fly? Wow,

what a question.
 QUOTES - ([Link])
• “As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding, or procrastinating, and if
we stopped to think or laugh, we’d never get nothing done.”

• “You mean you’d never get anything done,” corrected Milo.

• “We don’t want to get anything done,” snapped another angrily; “we want to get nothing done, and
we can do that without your help.” (2.65-67)

• If you look more closely at this first statement, like Milo does, you might think the Lethargarians
are making a grammatical mistake by saying, “we’d never get nothing done.” But they’re not.
They do want to get nothing done. In the Doldrums, the point is to do as little as possible, and the
Lethargarians fill up their schedules quite carefully to make sure that’s exactly what happens. Every
possible minute must be wasted. How does this work out for them?
 QUOTES - ([Link])
• Milo’s eyes opened wide, for there in front of him was a large dog with a perfectly normal head, four
feet, and a tail – and the body of a loudly ticking alarm clock.

• “What are you doing here?” growled the watchdog. (2.81-82)

• This character is a walking pun. He’s a watchdog (as in a guard dog), and a dog with a giant watch
inside of him. Like a watch, he tells you what time it is. Like a watchdog, he keeps track of how other
people are using time and polices them to make sure they do so properly.
 QUOTES - ([Link])
• One by one, the hours passed, and at exactly 5:22 (by Tock’s very accurate clock) Milo carefully opened
one eye and, in a moment, the other. Everything was still purple, dark blue, and black, yet scarcely a
minute remained to the long, quiet night. (11.1)

• So is Tock a dog or a clock? How in the world can he be both?

• At last the exhausted Milo, afraid to call for help and on the verge of tears, dropped his hands to his
sides. The orchestra stopped. The colors disappeared, and once again it was night. The time was 5:27
A.M. (11.15)

• Milo’s botched attempt at conducting the sunrise lasts exactly a week and five minutes. Time seems
very precise around these parts. Why do you think that is?
 QUOTES - ([Link])
• “Then why bother?” asked Tock, whose alarm suddenly began to ring. (17.13)

• This moment reminds us of Tock’s watchdog side. He’s protecting time, sure, but he’s also protecting
his friends. His alarm could be used to remind people to get up (etc.), but here it functions like a
proper “alarm” (like a fire alarm), warning the others of danger. Tock’s a pretty handy guy to have
around.

• ”Think of all the trouble it saves,” the man explained, and his face looked as if he’d be grinning an evil
grin – if he could grin at all. “If you only do the easy and useless jobs, you’ll never have to worry about
the important ones which are so difficult. You just won’t have the time. For there’s always something
to do to keep you from what you really should be doing, and if it weren’t for that dreadful magic staff,
you’d never know how much time you were wasting.” (17.20)

• The demon’s mantra goes against everything Tock stands for. The demon’s purpose is “wasting” time,
but that’s precisely what Tock’s supposed to guard against. So it makes sense that this guy ends
up being really dangerous. Tock’s main job in life is figuring out when people are wasting time and
keeping them from doing so. But he’s fooled by the demon and doesn’t realize that the tasks the
demon provides are precisely designed to waste time.
 WHAT DID WE LEARN TODAY?
• Figurative Language

• Symbols

• Chapters 6 and 7

• Theme 2: Time
HOMEWORK Reading: Chapter 8 and 9

Writing homework: Choose 1

Give your opinion in a persuasive way:

1. Despite the fact that being a watchdog is his life’s work, Tock is
not actually that great at keeping track of time.

2. The selection of a watchdog as Milo’s first and most loyal

companion on his quest emphasizes the importance of time as a
concept in The Phantom Tollbooth.3.
 Goodbye!
THANK YOU

lesson plan by Robert A Taylor