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Detective Fiction: Focus On Critical Thinking
Turn your 6th graders into detectives while growing their love of reading. Using critical thinking skills, they will be able to describe the five basic elements of detective fiction, read detective novels, make predictions, use the...
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The Game is Afoot - A Study of Sherlock Holmes
Mystery is an exciting genre for young readers to investigate. The plots are so intriguing! Here is a series of lessons featuring Sherlock Holmes stories that invite learners to enter the world of the mystery genre. Based on what they...
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Mystery Lessons
Learn about mysteries with your readers. They will investigate plot, basic elements of mystery, famous characters, and become familiar with genre vocabulary. Bring in props and mystery books to begin and then have learners create story...
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Edgar Allen Poe: More Than the Master of Horror
Celebrate Poe's birthday with works that don't feature incorporeal hearts or evil houses.
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Developing Thinking and Reasoning Skills in Primary Learners Using Detective Fiction
Students are introduced to the genre of detective fiction. Based on their reading level, they are given a different series of books to read. For each story, they are to make predictions and practice decoding messages. To end the...
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A Little Mystery and Intrigue in Writing Short Detective Stories
Students read and analyze the twelve short stories in the novel "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." They create their own detective that has to solve a new kind of crime, and write and edit a short story with their original detective as...
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Exploring the Mystery Genre
Students determine the story elements of typical mystery stories including characters and plot structure. They look at vocabulary that is common to mystery stories before reading and responding to mystery chapter books. Working in guided...
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Predicting a Mystery's Solution
Awarded the 1998 Edgar Award for Best Children's Mystery, Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief offers readers a chance to hone their predictive and deductive skills along with Sammy Keyes, who the Midwest Children's Book Review calls "the...
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Mysterious Plot Problems
Students explore the plot of mystery books. In this genre study lesson plan, students read the book, Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy and listen to a read aloud of a chapter from the text. Students fill in a graphic organizer that...
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Library Curriculum: What Would a Wonderful Library Be Like?
Second graders complete a KWL chart about libraries. They create a book using writing patterns of a particular author. Students decide criteria for awarding the Second Grade Librarian Award to books in the classroom library, and use a...
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Lesson Mystery: The Game is Afoot
Young scholars enter and experience the world of Sherlock Holmes and hard-boiled detectives in this unit on mysteries. They review and analyze the ""Whodunit Requirements" and the "Mystery Contract" that accompany this lesson. Each...
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Edgar Allan Poe and Anna Katherine Green
Students analyze the genre of detective fiction through stories by Edgar Allan Poe and Anna Katherine Green. In this detective fiction lesson plan, students read "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Second Bullet." Students read the summaries...
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The Gold-Bug
Does your class remember details from The Gold-Bug? Test them with fifteen multiple-choice questions that prove to be a bit of a challenge.
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Modesto City Schools Library Lesson Plan
Learners read and understand a variety of genres in a library setting. In this library activity instructional activity, students act as detectives and use clues in text and pictures to hypothesize the title of the missing book for the...
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Ingredients of a Mystery
Students explore the concept of mysteries. For this mystery genre lesson, students identify the common characteristics of mystery books and use a story map to identify these characteristics in a given book. Students also discover the...
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It's A Mystery To Me
Students become both mystery readers and writers. They utilize the Internet to understand the elements of this classic genre; employ critical thinking skills when reading various stories in both print and electronic formats; form groups...
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Mystery Writing Lesson Plans
Introduce your class to the genre of mystery. Included is a vocabulary list, a rubric, and a sample mystery story called "Lethal Lesson." There are very limited directions on what to do with these resources, so you will need to plan some...
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Cemetery Art And Architecture Detectives
Middle schoolers investigate the architecture found in cemeteries in order to separate different time periods of distinct design. The use of examples helps them to recognize the design in correlation to its time. The instructional...
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Harriet The Spy
Fourth graders investigate the style of diary writing as its own genre of literature. They read Harriet The Spy in order to have a text for this literature study. Students use the skill of prediction to preview the story, and then...
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Planting Clues in Short Stories
Students examine short stories to determine how clues are planted in story stories of the mystery genre. They look at how Edgar Allan Poe planted clues in "The Purloined Letter." They write an original short story in which they plant...
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Mystery Words
On this language arts worksheet, students locate 22 words on a word search. Each word is related to the mystery story genre. Students may self check their puzzles by selecting the link at the bottom of the page.
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Study Guide for the 2009 Richard Gray Visual Arts Lecturer: Jules Feiffer
Students analyze the cartoons of Jules Feiffer and the art genre to then create their own comic book-style spread. In this cartoon art lesson, students read about the work of Feiffer and identify the techniques of the art. Students...
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Building a Documentary Library
Documentary films allow your class to visit new places and gain a deeper understanding of complex issues.
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The Poetics of Hip Hop
The Bard, Nikki Giovanni, Mos Def? “Sonnet 18,” Ego Tripping,” and “Black on Both Sides”? Sure! It’s the poetics. Class members compare the lyrics, rhythm, and rhyme in classic poetry to hip-hop in a richly detailed resource that...