In this article, the researchers employ a linguistically informed approach to close reading that teaches a moral dilemma through an autobiographical short story. The approach, based on systemic functional linguistics, uses genre analysis that can draw students' attention to the structure, vocabulary, and grammar within literary texts, helping them better understand how meaning is constructed in the text. The authors exemplify this approach through the close reading of "Little Things Are Big" by Jesús Colón (1961) and provide implications for teaching literature about moral dilemmas and close reading to multilingual learners in a middle school ELA classroom. Through this analysis of the story, the authors demonstrate the power of close reading in a multilingual educational setting, showing how genre analysis enables a functional focus on language and meaning in literary reading.