Murder mystery is always one of the lessons that never fails to keep the whole class engaged. In conjunction with the Form1 final exam at the end of the month - instead of the normal test paper drilling practice method – I decided to conduct murder simulation in 1 Lawas for my English class.
Before the class starts, I placed a dummy (compilations of lab coat, wig, pair of jeans and gloves) on the floor and simulated the murder crime scene of Ms McGowan (victim). The clues and number tags were placed around the dead body so that the students could infer and deduce what had happened. I also placed the confession of 11 suspects around the room. The confession was a short piece of text excerpt which shows the suspect’s opinion of Ms. McGowan.
I alter-egoed myself as the angry head detective of the detective agency who will whack the newly recruited 'detectives' that speak other languages than English (this is always the fun part because students that have better command in English will speak funny broken English to ensure the weaker ones understand). The students have been given the exercise sheets where these detective apprentices have to find the motive, alibis and clues for every suspect. This was rather difficult for them as they have to transfer the information of the confession text to the exercise sheet; only 1 group managed to find the murderer while the other 5 failed to do so.
“Cikgu aktiviti best bah, tak perlulah training bagi ujian kami sanggup main macam ini tiap2 hari.”
Little do they know, this seemingly cool detective skill during the lesson is actually the usual reading comprehension skill (it is called INFERENCE) that they have been practicing since their primary school; the only difference was I chopped a long reading text into 11 text excerpts and stick it around. They thought they only had fun today while they didn’t know the exercise for information transfer comes in many ways other than from the papers *evil laugh*
Preparation time for this lesson was lengthy (2 hours in making the big knife + 2 hours looking for ideas in the internet) but this kind of lessons are always fun for both teacher and students. I could do this all day if time permits =]
(ps: the big knife was served as the motivation for the students to complete their work so that they could take photographs with this gimmick. Oh trust me selfies and photographs are always the best reward for the students!)
[Link for educators where I get this murder mystery resource:http://www.apliut.com/pages/aideense..._classroom.pdf
- See more at:http://www.themalaymailonline.com/pr....FnM4Stg4.dpuf
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