Small Things Like These | Comparative Study: Cultural Context, Courage & Moral Choice

This lesson focuses on moral courage and personal responsibility in Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These. It covers Bill Furlong’s social and financial vulnerability, the influence of reputation, community and the Church, and the potential consequences of action and inaction.

Students complete discussion and analytical tasks, use textual evidence to support their responses, and develop ideas from consequence → analysis → wider theme. The lesson concludes with a prosecution-and-defence activity in which students evaluate Bill’s choices and reach their own verdict on his actions.

Includes learning intentions, student activities, analytical modelling, sentence starters, comparative links and a plenary task. Suitable for Senior Cycle / Leaving Certificate English and the Comparative Study.

This is really two lessons that you should do after they have read the main text. This would ideally happen over two 1hour long lessons. Really nice for mixed ability groupings/ pairs.