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Instructional Lessons and Units
  • Kindergarten - Fiction and Nonfiction 
  • 1st Grade - Seasons Project
  • 3rd Grade - Help me, Librarian, You're My Only Hope!
  • 6th Grade: Is it alive?
  • 6th Grade: Know Your War Planes
  • 7th Grade (Special Education) - Harriet the Spy vs. Real Spies
  • 7th Grade: Preparing for a Debate
  • 7th Grade: Controversial Issues - Argument Essay
  • 7th Grade: Murder mystery! 
  • 7th Grade: Mission: US
  • 8th Grade: Zombie Historical Fiction
  • 8th Grade (Special Education) - Interpreting Poetry
  • 8th Grade - What's Your Origin Story?
  • 8th Grade: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
  • 8th Grade: History through Primary Sources


7th Grade: Murder Mystery!

Picture
Embarassed suspects holding incriminating evidence
The unit was created in collaboration with a science teacher and co-teacher in an ICT classroom. The students were presented with a scenario: Their beloved assistant principal was murdered (not really), and the murderer was walking among them! It was up to the class to narrow down the list of suspects and make an inference as to the identity of the murderer. Students studied the definition of evidence and what it meant to truly prove something vs. proving that something is plausible. Using the evidence they gathered through a series of science and research classes, they chose the most likely culprit and wrote an essay to defend their claims.

The unit was designed for 7th grade English Language Learners. Labs and lessons included the nature of evidence, sand analysis, fingerprint analysis, biomes/photograph analysis, and a math-based "hacking" lab. 

Other than assistance with the overall design of the unit, my contribution included a lesson on biomes and finding textual evidence to support a claim.
Lesson Plan:
murder_mystery_lesson_plan.pdf
File Size: 227 kb
File Type: pdf
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Sample photographs of the suspects in different biomes:
Biome Information Handout/Student Work (From the Lesson):
biome_information.pdf
File Size: 346 kb
File Type: pdf
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Student Work:
murder_mystery_student_work.pdf
File Size: 1124 kb
File Type: pdf
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