3rd Grade Reading/ELA

How Mystery Books Go

Teacher: Mrs. Dina Grasso
Grade: 3rd Grade
Content Area: Reading

Content and Standards:

Standard - CC.1.3.3.B
Ask and answer questions about the text and make inferences from text; refer to text to
support responses.

Standard - CC.1.3.3.C
Describe characters in a story and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence
of events.

Standard - CC.1.3.3.E
Refer to parts of texts when writing or speaking about a text using such terms as
chapter, scene and stanza and describe how each successive part builds upon earlier
sections.

Standard - CC.1.3.3.K
Read and comprehend literary fiction on grade-level, reading independently and
proficiently.

Standard - CC.1.5.3.A
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions on grade-level topics and
texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Standard - CC.1.5.3.D
Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts
and relevant, descriptive details, speak clearly with adequate volume, appropriate
pacing, and clear pronunciation.

Prerequisites: Students should have the ability to read appropriate grade level texts and use
reading strategies to help them read and understand various texts.

Essential Questions: What is the same across all mystery books? How do mystery books usually
go?

Materials and Equipment:

Teacher - Mystery Book Teaching Guide, (Lucy Calkins Unit of Study), Nate the Great and the
Phony Clue by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat, Chart Paper, Whiteboard, Markers,
Student - Reading Notebook, Post-It Notes, Four Short Mystery Passages, Pencil
Instructional Objective: Students will know how to read mystery stories and be able to
determine if mystery stories tend to go the same way.

Instructional Procedures:

Before (10mins)

I will begin the lesson by calling students to our reading area and have those
students who sit on their chairs bring their chairs to the front of their desk and
those students who sit on the floor to sit on the floor. When students have gathered,
I will introduce today’s lesson and share that as we have been reading our mystery
books, we have not only been learning about our own mystery books, but all
mystery books!

I will ask students to take a minute to think about what we have learned or what we
notice when reading a mystery book that may be different from other books. I will
then ask students to share what they learned about mysteries with their reading
buddy.

I will listen in to some student conversations.

I will then have students bring their attention back to me using “Come back in 5, 4, 3,
2 and 1. I will share some of the conversations that I overheard or provide examples
such as - mysteries have clues, there are lots of suspects, the detective usually guesses
wrong at first, and the detective usually has a helper. I will ask students, “I wonder if
these characteristics are true of all mystery books?

I will tell students that for us to find out we have to do a giant investigation by
reading more mystery books to see if our theories, our thoughts are true! Are you
ready?!?

During (45 mins):

I will let students know that to test our theories we need to read a lot of mysteries to
see if our theory is true! Even if the theory is true for 2 mysteries it may not be true
for all!

(I Do)
I will take one of our theories, detectives usually guess wrong at first, and read the
book Nate the Great and the Phony Clue to practice this investigation. I will read
aloud the whole book quickly. I will tell students to be listening to see if our theory
is true – detectives usually guess wrong at first. I will say, if we come to a part where
we hear the detective guesses wrong at first and our theory is true hold up your
hand/stop sign (I will demonstrate this for the students). If we come to part where
the detective guesses right at first, hold up your hand/stop sign. Otherwise, I will
keep reading. Are you ready?!
As I read, my goal will be for students to stop me where the Nate, the detective,
guess is wrong at first. If I don’t see any hands, I will stop and reread that part again.

If students do show their hands, I will respond accordingly by saying, Oh, you think
Nate the detective is wrong here? I agree! Nate guesses the picture is buried in the
backyard, but they dig and it isn’t there! So far our theory holds true!

(We Do)
Before I continue reading, I will ask students to think of another theory about how
mystery books tend to go and to put a thumbs up when they have another theory to
test.

Once I see most or some student thumbs, I will say maybe another theory is that the
detective always goes back to the crime scene to look for clues, or that there are lots
of suspects who seem like they could have done it…hopefully more students’
thumbs will go up.

As I continue reading, I will ask students to think about another theory and listen as
I read to see if their theory happened in this book or not.

Once I am done reading the book, I will have students turn and talk with their
reading buddy about their discoveries.

I will listen in to some partnerships and help facilitate discussions if necessary.

After their partnerships share, I will give students their independent reading task
for today.

(You Do)
I will call students back after their discussion using Come back in 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. I
will tell students that today, we are going to read short mystery passages to answer
our question and to test our theory – what is the same across all mystery books? Is
this true for all mysteries?

I will call students who sit on the floor first to get their book bins and return to their
desks. I will then have students who sit on their chairs get their book bins and
return to their reading their desks.

On each student’s desk there will be four short mystery passages. I will have
students think of one theory. I will ask students to write this theory on a clean page
in their reading notebook. I will demonstrate how to do this and draw the image
below on the white board using the books that we have read aloud so far.
 I think that the crime solver does not guess right on their first try

Title True False

The Absent Author X
Nate the Great and the Phony Clue X

I will tell students that our goal is to read as many of the short mystery passages as
we can to see if their theory is true.

At the end of our reading time, I will have students share their observations with
their desk partner. I will then ask students to write their discoveries on a post-it
note and to gather and stand around our anchor chart so we can add their post-it
notes for future reference! (New TPT Strategy for me) (See teacher resources
below.)

Assessment: Through student notebook observation, conferring with students and

through our wrap-up discussion, I will be able to see if students were able to test a theory
by reading multiple mystery stories and determine if all mysteries tend to go the same way.

Differentiated Instruction: There will be some students who may need more 1:1 support,
such as restating directions and assistance in writing the chart in their notebook. I will visit
each of these students individually at their desk to ensure that they understand the task
and ensure that they get started. For these students, I will most likely begin by helping
them select their first passage, write this passage title in their reading notebook/chart, and
begin reading the passage for them. I will ask that they continue reading and let them know
that I will come back to see if their theory is true or not! There will also be students who
finish reading all 4 passages. I will challenge these students to test another theory by
setting up another chart in the reading notebook before our reading time is over. For my EL
student who is below grade level in reading, I will allow her to read her mystery books that
my mentor teacher and I selected for her for our mystery unit.

Closure: I will let students know that they did a great job digging deeper into mysteries
today and discovering whether all mysteries are the same. We discovered some great
theories today! I will restate some theories that students discovered and challenge students
to think about these theories as they continue to be readers of mystery books. If you notice
your book is doing some of what we discovered today, we can think, “Yep! Just as we
thought!”
Student Resources
Teacher Resources

Chart Paper/Anchor Chart to collect students’ theories