We will begin our study of mysteries with a discussion of mysteries we have read or seen on TV or in the movies, comparing kinds of characters, settings, problems, clues and solutions. Together we will chart this information on large posterboard which will be displayed in the room for continuous reference. I will then introduce the following terms (see glossary at the end of this unit) to my class: deduction, evidence, red herring, sleuth, suspects, witness, interrogation, motive and clue. We will use these terms throughout our study of detective stories. From this general introduction to the world of mysteries we will move to the reading of particular detective stories.
With each story we will preview the story, look at the cover and illustrations and attempt to make predictions about the content and direction of the story. As we read the story aloud and discuss it in the small group, the students will keep a journal in which they will list and keep track of the clues given in each story, list possible suspects, their motives and means of committing the crime and offer their solutions to the mystery. At the end of each story, we will create a story map of the story where we will more closely examine the characters, problem, setting, main events leading up to the solution and solution itself.
There are two valuable sources, Deborah Jerome-Cohen's (editor) Investigating Mysteries and Patricia S. Morris and Margaret A. Berry's Mystery and Suspense from which I will select additional relevant extension activities that will reinforce critical thinking and reading comprehension skills.
Nate The Great
Nate the Great, created by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat, is a junior detective, clever beyond his 7 or 8 years who has a weakness for pancakes. In his first case he insists on working alone but in subsequent cases his dog, Sludge, accompanies him. Nate leaves no stone unturned in his efforts to solve the mystery that his friends in the neighborhood call upon him to solve.
In Nate The Great, the first book of the series, Nate is asked by a friend down the street to try and find a painting she had done of her dog, Fang, which has disappeared. In this story for beginning readers Nate gathers his clues and is able to deduce not only how the painting disappeared but also who made it disappear.
An appropriate extension activity for this story entitled "Newspaper Article" is described in the previously mentioned Mystery and Suspense. Students are asked to gather the facts of the case answering the questions: who, what, when, where, why and how. They imagine that they are reporters and write a newspaper article based on the crime in the story. Lesson Plan II (found at the end of this unit) explains this activity in more detail.
In Nate the Great and the Phony Clue, a clue meant to be a red herring actually leads Nate to the culprits, the writers of a mysterious invitation. His dog, Sludge, whose purpose seems to be one of providing moral support rather than of assisting in any significant way, accompanies him in his investigation. This story makes clear what a red herring is and how it can be used to foil a detective. Interestingly, although Nate is temporarily set off track by this false clue, a minute aspect of it (a single letter e) aids him in later solving this mystery.
In Nate The Great Goes Undercover our young sleuth has to work the night shift to try to find out who is raiding his neighbor, Oliver's, garbage can. The evidence is abundant but the list of possible suspects is also long including man and beast alike. Nate literally goes under cover, that is, under cover of a garbage can lid, to try to get to the bottom of the mystery. Since the culprit turns out to be his loyal canine companion, Sludge, it seems appropriate to ask the students in an extension activity to take Sludge's point of view and retell the story in narrative form describing what made him do what he did. They could then compare their retelling with the story told from Nate's point of view. Understanding point of view will increase in importance as my students begin the writing of their mystery stories.
Sebastian, Super Sleuth
This series, written by Mary Blount Christian, is designed for the more advanced reader and has as its central figure Sebastian, a dog who helps solve the crimes that his master, police Detective John Quincy Jones, has been assigned. This canine sleuth, who often takes on clever disguises in which he is able to pass as a human, is relentless in his search for justice. He has the difficult task of working on the case often for long hours without the knowledge of his master who would greatly disapprove of his interference in 'police work.'
In Sebastian and the Impossible Crime a masterpiece has vanished from the museum where it was on display during a black-tie reception. What is particularly interesting in this mystery is that the disappearance occurred in a closed room with no means for the culprit to escape with the prize painting. Sebastian, as any good detective would, examines the motive, opportunity and means of a number of suspects and through a clever process of deduction is able to solve the mystery and uncover the painting.
This detective story lends itself very well to the "Mapping the Scene of the Crime" activity found in Mystery and Suspense. Students will draw the museum room in all of its described detail and position the guests as they were in the room at the time of the painting's disappearance. They will then offer their explanations as to how they think the painting could have been stolen and compare them with the actual sequence of events that occurs in the story.
Thus far, in two different mystery series, there has been a case of a missing painting: in Nate the Great's first case where he had to find Annie's stolen painting and in Sebastian's case at the museum. It would be interesting to make a detailed comparison of the two robberies. Morris and Berry, in their previously mentioned book, offer a chart in the activity entitled "More Than One" that students can use in their comparison. The following aspects, listed in separate columns of the chart, would include: what was the crime scene (time and place), what was stolen, how was it stolen, who were the thieves, who were the victims, and what was the reaction of on-lookers. Partners could work together gathering the information and charting it. A discussion of the similarities and differences could then take place.
A second Sebastian mystery, Sebastian and the Baffling Bigfoot, has Sebastian at his best travelling incognito in various disguises. He acts like a fawning pet in his master's presence but when left on his own, Sebastian is right back on the trail to uncover who or what is causing the commotion at Sasquatch Inn. Is there really a Bigfoot loose in the surrounding woods? The story ends leaving open the possibility that Bigfoot does exist.
This mystery provides a wonderful introduction to our exploration of Bigfoot. Carrie Carmichael offers a fascinating description of the Bigfoot phenomenon for young readers in her book, Bigfoot: Man, Monster or Myth? This type of reading of nonfiction provides a nice balance to all of our reading in this unit of detective fiction. A special study strategy called SQ3R will help my students read nonfiction selections. S stands for survey and involves previewing the title, headings and pictures to decide what the selection is about. At this stage a reader can also reflect on what he already knows about the subject. Q stands for questioning what you expect to learn from your reading. Readers are encouraged to turn the title and headings into questions to which they then seek answers. The three "R"s stand for reading the selection carefully, reciting or saying in your own words what each section is about, and reviewing what you read by answering your questions. My students will use this method to examine factual information and analyze it in order to form their own conclusions about the existence of Bigfoot. With this story students will be grouped in pairs and given a single subtopic to research. Marilyn Evans, in her book, Guided Report Writing, suggests beginning with subtopics which the students can focus on after reading the selection. In this case possible categories might include the Indian legend, eyewitness descriptions of Bigfoot, footprint sightings and Bigfoot captured on film. I would assign one subtopic to each pair of students and they would be responsible for reading, notetaking and writing a paragraph on this topic. Each pair will contribute their written paragraph to form a multi-paragraph report on Bigfoot which they will present to the class. Students will also have the opportunity to draw their versions of Bigfoot.
In Sebastian and the Egyptian Connection our super sleuth suspects that valuable Egyptian artifacts stolen from the Cairo museum are about to be smuggled into the city where he lives. Among his disguises in this case are that of a longshoreman and a newspaper reporter. We learn in this story how customs dogs are trained to sniff out packing grease for weapons. Sebastian discovers, however, that their noses have been rubbed with vanilla extract effectively hindering their ability to sniff out illegal imports of weapons. He is similarly suffering from a weakened sense of smell because of an earlier accident with turpentine. Despite this handicap he, as usual, is able to foil the criminal's efforts and plays a major role in his apprehension.
From this mystery we will move into a study of how dogs are used in police work. Charlotte Foltz Jones in her book, Fingerprints and Talking Bones: How Real-life Crimes are Solved, provides a very interesting section which we will read on heroic dogs who have protected their owners from criminals, dogs specially trained to sniff out drugs, explosives and evidence of arson, and search and rescue dogs. She describes how a dog is selected for such training and how it is trained. This subject is bound to be very appealing to my young readers and may serve to spur them on to do further research in this subject area.
Meg Mackintosh
Meg Mackintosh is a young female detective about 9 or 10 years old who is very astute in her observations and careful to notice all details. This series is designed for the middle reader and its author, Lucinda Landon, by supplying clues both in the text and in the illustrations, challenges the reader to match wits with the young sleuth, Meg, and try to solve the mystery. Her brother, Peter, is often at her side during her investigations but it must be said that he more often provides a hindrance rather than a help to her solving of the case. In fact, in The Case of the Missing Babe Ruth Baseball, Peter throws out a red herring in an effort to foil her investigation and gain time in order to solve the mystery himself. In this mystery, unlike the others introduced thus far, the reader must figure out how the crime was committed, since he/she has already been informed early in the story who committed it. Meg always writes everything down so readers will be asked to chart the clues in their journals as they read the story. Word puzzles, important clues written in secret codes, are also included in this mystery, providing a springboard for my young readers to practice writing messages of their own using a code system (alphabet codes or scrambled letter codes) as used in this story.
Meg, by providing her deductions regarding the clues she has gathered thus far, demonstrates the logical way generalizations can be made regarding a series of discovered clues. It provides a simple but clear introduction to the thought process. Let's take a closer look at how she does this. In this story Meg writes everything down in her detective notebook. She follows the four-step process of track, write, decode, and deduce to arrive at the solution to the mystery. Meg considers the clues that Alice had left in various hiding places. She lists her three deductions in her notebook: 1) All clues have to do with Mother Goose Rhymes; 2) All clues are hidden in this house; 3) Clues can only be found in old things because Alice hid them long ago. Based on these deductions, Meg reconsiders the last clue she has found, "the little dog laughed." It leads her to her grandpa's old toy dog. Noticing a loose thread, Meg pulls it and finds the long lost Babe Ruth baseball tucked inside the stuffed animal.
In a second mystery, The Mystery of the Soccer Match, Meg, in her typically organized way, shows the reader how she organizes her notes in the case, grouping her information under three headings: suspects, motives and clues. The reader is invited to formulate his/her own deductions regarding this information. In this mystery two different people, Heather and Alex, confess to taking a gold medal at different times. An appropriate activity taken from Mystery and Suspense is the "Mea Culpa Letter" where students step into the shoes of the culprits and from their point of view write a letter confessing their crime and telling why they had done it. Lesson Plan I describes this activity in more detail.
In The Case of the Curious Whale Watch Meg searches for a treasure map that has disappeared while she is on a cruise with a closed circle of suspects all with a motive, opportunity and means. One of the illustrations in this story is Meg's attempt to map out the scene of the crime and it invites readers to analyze information and see if their conclusions match with hers. As this mystery takes place on the sea, it would seem very appropriate for my students to next explore the real-life mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. Hazel Brown's and Brian Cambourne's Read and Retell offers a brief and simplified description of this mystery to which students would be asked to read and discuss. A second mystery to explore whose setting is in the water is that of the Loch Ness monster. Sally Berke, in her book for young readers entitled, Monster at Loch Ness, discusses the legends and the evidence regarding the origins and existence of the Loch Ness Monster. Copying the approach used in studying Bigfoot, my students will familiarize themselves with this mystery.
The Bloodhound Gang
Vikki, Ricardo and Zach are three young detectives in Sid Fleischman's mysteries who make up the Bloodhound Gang. They put their heads together to solve the mysteries and are a very efficient team. These stories fall into the middle level of reading difficulty.
In The Case of Princess Tomorrow the Bloodhound Gang set out to prove that the princess's uncanny ability to predict the future while under hypnosis is actually a hoax. Something about the way Professor Diabolo oversoaked the stamp before putting it on the envelope bothered Vikki. Later she is to discover that his intention was to make sure the stamp didn't stick for long, thus causing the letter never to reach its destination. Another question bothered the dynamic trio. Why was the name of the racehorse that Princess Tomorrow predicted would win misspelled? They were to discover that it was because she had copied it from the late-afternoon newspaper account of the race results, the original source of the error. These two clues would later lead to the downfall of those two partners in crime. The reader is invited to track the clues along with our trio and make predictions about what Professor Diabolo and his princess are really up to.
"Track That Clue" activity found in the previously mentioned Investigating Mysteries offers my students a handy flowchart of boxes and arrows which they can use to show the direction and cause-and-effect nature of the clues given in this story. In addition, we will take a closer look at hypnosis and its validity as a crime-solving tool. We will begin by reading the section on hypnosis in Jone's Fingerprints and Talking Bones.
In The Case of the Cackling Ghost our gang is hired by Mrs. Fairbanks to establish whether there is a ghost regularly haunting her premises. Her nephew, Edmund, insists that she is going mad and that she is suffering from the curse of the Darjeeling Necklace. The only cure is for her to get rid of this priceless piece of jewelry and he offers to take charge of it. With keen observation and fearless pursuit, the Bloodhound Gang slowly unravel Edmund's deceptive plan.
Appropriate to this story would be a discussion of the advantages a trio of sleuths have over the detective who works solo. Numerous instances can be found in these two stories of how one member further acts on the hunches of another or picks up clues unnoticed by another and how each member assigns himself to different suspects who they watch carefully and regularly report on. It is through their joint efforts that the crimes are satisfactorily resolved. A lively discussion and comparison of the junior detectives we have read about can now take place. After listing and analyzing their similarities and differences, we will discuss the traits that a good detective possesses. Such an exercise is an ideal springboard for writing our own detective stories.
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