Who Dun It? Murder Mystery Literature & Writing

This is a

• 16- week literature and creative writing course designed to introduce high school students to the world of detectives, clues, and murder mysteries.

• While meeting famous detectives such as Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and C. Auguste Dupin,

• The students will learn to develop their unique characters as they write their own murder mystery.

• Students will learn how to utilize clever red herrings and unexpected plot twists as they create story outlines.

• The essential elements of murder mystery writing taught in this course will apply across many genres.

Expectations

Students will have roughly

• 1-2 hours of homework each week as they explore the world of classic murder mysteries. This will mainly consist of reading, listening to audio versions of the stories, and watching TV episodes of classic murder mysteries.

• Each week, we will have a Book Club discussion time to review the assigned reading.

• We will spend a large portion of the class devoted to developing the characters and plots for the students’ murder mysteries.

Access to a computer will be necessary for the final publication of the student’s murder mystery.

Cell phones will be allowed as a reading/writing aid if they are not a distraction during class.

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this course. It is designed as a ½ credit high school language arts class, but it may also be appropriate for mature middle school students who love to read and write.