

Section I, Childhood, contains "The Sisters," "An Encounter," and "Araby" (the most anthologized of the stories). From there, the teaching ideas follow the structure that Joyce gave the book in a letter to his publisher: The organization of this teacher’s guide begins with teaching ideas to use before reading starts. By studying Joyce's world, students can better understand many of the forces that have shaped their own. Dubliners can be studied in an interdisciplinary unit in English and world history. In addition to the personal connections students will be able to make with Joyce's stories, the book also lends itself to a historical study of Irish history, politics, and religion. Students will enjoy joining Joyce's unwavering examination of the most powerful institutions in his and our lives.

They will be able to relate to the characters in section four who are bound by conventions and norms of which they are barely aware. Students searching for their place in the world relentlessly question the spoken and unspoken rules governing our existence. The future is very important to adolescents, and Joyce's glimpses of life in the third section will sound a warning that decisions made early in life carry far-reaching consequences. In section two, these students, who are on the verge of graduating from high school and experiencing the changes coming from this momentous event, will be able to connect strongly with the fear of change faced by Eveline ("Eveline") while embracing the excitement of dreams for the future held by Jimmy ("After the Race").

Students who not long ago were playing childhood games and undergoing childhood crushes will identify easily with the characters in the three stories in section one.

The central theme of paralysis due to the effects of outside forces and individual moral decay will be attractive to older adolescents who are struggling to find their places in a world where they are continually buffeted by outside forces and their own uncertainties. The fact that in Dubliners Joyce uses a more traditionally structured style makes the novel more accessible than his other works to advanced high school readers. As his first published work of fiction, Dubliners stands by itself both as an important piece of writing and as a forerunner of the experimental style that Joyce would use so effectively in his later works. Dubliners, by James Joyce, is a good reading choice for advanced level 12th-grade students.
