Twenty-four lessons · six Parts

Lessons by Part

A teaching sequence that sticks to the structure of the text. Each lesson gives a focus, page references (Faber paperback), a key question to drive discussion, activities and a written outcome. Every Part links to its student guide page for pre-reading, homework or catch-up.

Jump to: Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3 · Part 4 · Part 5 · Part 6

Part 1: In the Store (pp. 3–51)

Five lessons. The priority is training the reading habit the whole novel depends on: seeing past Klara. Establish speculative-fiction context lightly in lesson one, then keep every lesson anchored in close reading of the narration. Student guide for this Part →

#	Lesson focus	Key question	Activities	Written outcome
1	Openings and orientation pp. 3–7	What kind of narrator is this? What does she notice, and what can’t she see?	First-page close reading; genre placement alongside Never Let Me Go and Frankenstein; introduce the AF premise and the Sun’s “nourishment”.	First impressions journal: three things Klara understands, three she misreads.
2	The window: watching the world pp. 8–20	How does the store window work as both stage and cage?	Track the passers-by (Coffee Cup Lady, the children outside); analyse “neutral smiles” and store etiquette; first meeting with Josie and the Mother’s bird-like watchfulness.	Annotation task: the Josie meeting, promise, illness, foreshadowing.
3	Misreading humans pp. 20–31	What do Klara’s errors reveal that accuracy couldn’t?	The taxi-driver fight (Klara vs Rosa’s readings); the fragmented “boxes” vision of Manager; dramatic irony as the novel’s method.	Analytical paragraph: how Ishiguro uses Klara’s misreadings.
4	The Sun, the Beggar Man and the Cootings Machine pp. 31–44	How does a religion begin?	The Pollution episode; the Beggar Man “resurrection”; map Klara’s emerging belief system (god, devil, miracle); Manager’s warning about promises.	Symbol log opened: every Sun reference, with page and effect (runs all term).
5	Being chosen pp. 44–51	What is the Mother really testing when Klara imitates Josie’s walk?	Close reading of the purchase scene; the customer/AF power dynamic; predictions sealed in envelopes to reopen at Part 4.	Extract response: how does Ishiguro make the purchase scene unsettling?

Part 2: Life at Josie’s House (pp. 55–124)

Four lessons. The social critique arrives here: lifting, the interaction meeting, and the Mother’s grief. Keep Sal in view, she explains everything the adults do. Student guide for this Part →

#	Lesson focus	Key question	Activities	Written outcome
1	New home, new hierarchy pp. 55–64	Where does Klara fit in this household?	The kitchen and the Island as territory; Melania’s hostility; the “quick coffee” ritual; first views of the fields and Mr McBain’s barn.	Setting analysis: what the house tells us that the characters don’t.
2	Rick and the plan pp. 64–72	What has Rick got that the lifted children haven’t?	First trip outside; the drone birds; “You said you’d never get an AF”; Josie and Rick’s shared “plan” and what threatens it.	Character profile: Rick, evidence vs the adults’ view of him.
3	The interaction meeting pp. 72–97	How does Ishiguro stage an entire society in one living room?	The adults’ coded snobbery vs the children’s cruelty; Klara handled as a gadget; Rick’s intervention; Josie’s silence; B3 insecurity afterwards.	Debate: “Lifting divides more than it helps” + AO4 research log (gene editing, selective education).
4	Morgan’s Falls and Sal pp. 97–124	Is the Mother’s request love, grief, or rehearsal?	“Since Josie isn’t here, I want you to be Josie”; the bull and the sheep as moral symbolism; photographs and Sal; Josie’s cooler homecoming.	Essay paragraph: how does Ishiguro present the Mother in Part 2?

Part 3: Faith and the Barn (pp. 127–200)

Six lessons for the novel’s longest and richest Part (expand to eight with a stronger class or more time, the extract-essay opportunities here are the best in the book). Student guide for this Part →

#	Lesson focus	Key question	Activities	Written outcome
1	Decline and the picture-frame gate pp. 127–137	How does Ishiguro build dread without drama?	Josie worsening; Rick’s visits; Klara’s B3 inadequacy anxieties; tone and foreshadowing tracking.	Tension map of the opening of Part 3.
2	The bubble game pp. 137–148	Why can Josie and Rick only tell the truth through drawings?	The game as proxy communication; the cruel Courage bubble; the Atlas Brookings quarrel; growing up as threat.	Extract essay: loneliness and connection in the bubble-game scenes.
3	Disappointed faith pp. 148–160	What does a believer do when “his special help didn’t come”?	Klara’s response to the Sun’s silence, not doubt but a plan; the apology drawing; “Rick and Josie forever”.	Analytical paragraph: childlike register and faith.
4	Miss Helen and chosen loneliness pp. 161–172	Guest or vacuum cleaner, what is Klara to the adults?	“I didn’t think that humans could choose loneliness”; Atlas Brookings and the two per cent; the second Sal sighting reported.	Extract essay: how Ishiguro presents Helen (with whole-novel reference).
5	To the barn pp. 174–186	How does Ishiguro make a barn holy?	The journey across the fields (Rick carrying Klara); orange light, hay, the Sun’s “patterns”; the prayer as bargain and contract; segmented-sky imagery.	Extract essay: Klara’s faith in the barn scene, the term’s anchor assessment.
6	Contracts and the night scene pp. 186–200	What do we know now that Klara doesn’t say?	The reconciliation; Melania’s “We same side”; Josie’s “Don’t want to die, Mom”, what even the most devoted AF cannot provide.	Evaluation: “There are some human needs no Artificial Friend can meet.” How far does Part 3 agree?

Part 4: The City (pp. 203–292)

Five lessons. The ethical climax. Teach Capaldi as a position, not a villain, and give Paul’s doubt its full weight, evaluation questions live here. Student guide for this Part →

#	Lesson focus	Key question	Activities	Written outcome
1	Paul and the substituted pp. 203–215	What has this society done with its unneeded people?	The Father’s arrival; the mirror gift; “substitution” and the clandestine community; vocabulary work: clandestine; re-sighting the Cootings Machine.	Quotation annotation: how is Paul presented? Comparison with the Mother.
2	The portrait revealed pp. 216–238	Is there anything inside a person that cannot be copied?	“We’re asking you to become her”; Capaldi’s materialism vs Paul’s “human heart”; the Mother’s “Continue Josie for me”; reopen the Part 1 predictions envelopes.	Discussion write-up + essay plan: “Ishiguro questions what it means to be human.”
3	The scrapyard sacrifice pp. 239–253	Is Klara’s sacrifice noble, programmed, or both?	The P-E-G Nine solution; science as scripture; “I think I hate Capaldi because deep down I suspect he may be right”; “rooms within rooms”.	Analytical paragraph: sacrifice and its cost.
4	The city at night pp. 253–271	How wide is this novel’s dystopia?	The sushi-bar gathering; “many different ways to lead a decent and full life”; the theatre-queue hostility; the Mother’s “empty eyes”.	Extract response: hope and despair in the city scenes.
5	Helen and Vance pp. 272–292	Who guards the gates in this world, and why do they enjoy it?	The begging scene; Vance’s cruelty and old wounds; “after that, frankly, it becomes a lottery”; Klara’s conclusion: “Perhaps all humans are lonely.”	Essay from that line: Klara’s understanding of humanity.

Part 5: Crisis and the Miracle (pp. 295–314)

Two lessons. Short, intense, and the site of the novel’s sharpest interrogation of ambition. Preserve the recovery scene’s ambiguity at all costs, don’t let the class settle the miracle question early. Student guide for this Part →

#	Lesson focus	Key question	Activities	Written outcome
1	The second prayer pp. 295–307	How has Klara’s faith changed since the first barn visit?	Josie’s collapse; “true and lasting” love as evidence; the apology-prayer (“Josie herself is completely innocent”); “given it all”.	Comparison: the two barn prayers side by side.
2	The “winner” speech and the light pp. 310–314	What is worth risking everything for?	The gambling metaphor; Rick’s reply; the miracle staged ambiguously (“Hey. What’s with this light anyway?”); pathetic fallacy and the “ferocious half-disc of orange”.	Extract essay: the Mother’s attitudes to ambition and success, with whole-novel range.

Part 6: The Ending (pp. 319–end)

Two lessons (one on the text, one synoptic). The ending rewards slow reading: understatement is doing all the work. Student guide for this Part →

#	Lesson focus	Key question	Activities	Written outcome
1	The slow fade pp. 319–end	Is this ending peaceful, tragic, or something we don’t have a word for?	Rick and Josie’s parting; the Utility Room; Capaldi’s return and the “black box” fears; the Yard; “inside those who loved her”; Manager’s farewell and the mirror with Part 1.	Evaluation essay: “By the end, Ishiguro suggests love cannot be replicated by technology.” To what extent?
2	Synoptic revision whole text	What is this novel finally arguing?	Debate: “This House believes Klara is the most human character”; quotation banks by theme (three each for love, sacrifice, humanity, AI, memory, hope, loneliness); character-arc mapping.	Timed full essay from the practice bank; redraft after feedback-tool annotation.

Standalone enrichment lessons

Three single lessons that can drop in anywhere after the relevant reading: Faith in the novel (collect and classify every Sun petition; challenge question, how does faith differ from logic or proof?); Egocentrism (rank the characters from least to most self-centred and defend the ranking from the text); and Capitalism and the store (the Cootings Machine, obsolescence and the AF market as consumer-society critique).