An Inspector Calls: Priestley's Socialism and the Inspector's Final Speech Lesson Plan

Lesson Overview

This 60-minute lesson asks Year 11 students to read An Inspector Calls as an explicitly political artefact, not a mystery play. The Inspector becomes the conduit for Priestley's 1945 collectivism, and the Birling daughters and parents are weighed as ideological case studies in whether change is possible.

Starter (10 minutes): Debate

Display the motion: "The Inspector is a supernatural agent of Priestley's politics." Two minutes of silent thinking, then a one-minute proposition speech and one-minute opposition speech from volunteers. Take a hands vote. Frame the rest of the lesson as a search for textual evidence to test the motion. Keep the vote on the board to repeat at the plenary.

Main (40 minutes): Tracing the Collectivist Message

The Inspector's Final Speech

Project the speech in full. Students read in silence, then annotate three things in pairs: pronouns, religious imagery, and prophetic future tense. Highlight the line, "We are members of one body," and ask what church language is doing in a 1945 socialist drama. Then highlight the warning, "they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish," and discuss the historical weight of those nouns to an audience three months out of the Blitz. The Inspector is not delivering moral guidance; he is delivering a political ultimatum.

Sheila versus Mrs Birling: Capacity for Change

Set up a split-page comparison. On Sheila's side, students gather quotations showing her movement from complicity to conscience — her admission that "I'll never, never do it again" and her refusal to retreat once the Inspector has gone. On Mrs Birling's side, they gather evidence of refusal: her insistence she did "nothing she's ashamed of" and her dismissal of Eva Smith as a girl "of that class." Frame the contrast as ideological, not characterological: Priestley uses Sheila to argue that the young can change and Mrs Birling to argue that entrenched capitalism cannot.

1945 Context: Postwar Election and the Welfare State

Brief students on the July 1945 general election that swept Labour to power on a promise of universal welfare, the 1942 Beveridge Report, and the foundation of the NHS in 1948. The play premieres into precisely this political moment. Ask: does the play describe the postwar settlement, or argue for it? Pupils should reach the second answer.

Worked Grade 9 Paragraph

Model on the board a paragraph beginning, "Priestley uses the Inspector's final speech as the ideological climax of a play written into the 1945 election." Demonstrate the integration of "fire and blood and anguish" with Blitz memory and "members of one body" with the imminent welfare state. Show how to argue that the play is not reflective but interventionist.

Plenary (10 minutes): One-Sentence Thesis

Students write a single sentence answering: what is Priestley's purpose? Read three aloud, then revote on the opening motion. Note any movement.

Differentiation

• Foundation: paragraph stems for the Grade 9 task ("Priestley argues that... shown when the Inspector says... which in 1945 would have made the audience feel...") and a glossary covering collectivism, welfare state and Beveridge.
• Higher: a short extract from Marxist literary criticism on character as ideological function, with the prompt: is Sheila a person or a thesis about who can be saved?

Linked Resources

• Text revision hub: /revision/texts/an-inspector-calls
• Critical analysis: /analysis/inspector-calls