Crime Solvers

Karen Engelhuber

Thursday, February 29th

10-15 minutes - Lucy Calkins’ lessons are meant to be around 12 minutes; I’m expecting this to be about
15.

Direct Instruction

I. Framing the lesson:

A. Lesson Rationale
Students are getting started with the mystery unit in which they will be exploring mystery as a genre.
Throughout the mystery unit, students will be informed of the many components that make up mystery
books such as clues and character roles. The unit is based on and directly taught from Lucy Calkins’
curriculum book.

B. Central Focus
Students will be learning about how mystery readers try to solve the mystery before the crime solver
does. Students as mystery readers do this by paying close attention to the details mentioned that might
be clues. Then, they use the clues to help figure out the mystery and to predict the solution.

C. Lesson Objectives
Students will be able to identify possible clues in a mystery book.

D. Michigan Standards
RL.3.5 - Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms
such as chapter, scene, and stanza: describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections
RL.3.1 - Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text
as the basis for the answers.

E. Lesson Materials
- Lucy Calkins’ Mystery: Foundational Skills in Disguise Curriculum
- A to Z Mysteries - The Absent Author by Ron Roy

II. Engagement/Exploration/Explanation
A. Anticipatory Set
To get students engaged in the material, I’ll have students think about the typical items and/or clothes
detectives have. They might have a big coat, a hat, and a huge magnifying glass. However, we don’t need
to look like a detective to be a detective. We are going to start thinking like a crime solver. We need to
become the crime solver, the detective, to solve the mystery.

B. Explore/Enable/Explain
Next, I will tell students the purpose of the lesson. As mystery readers, we are trying to solve the mystery
before the crime-solver in our book does. As readers, we are going to pay close attention to story details
that could be clues and use those clues to figure out the mystery or the solution.
Then we are going to practice this with the read-aloud (the reading will be done during snack break in
the morning) by looking back at a passage we read. I’ll tell students that to try this work, we think like a
detective. We are going to pay attention to all the details that might be clues or anyone who could be a
suspect. I’ll inform students that when you start a mystery, typically, there are a lot of clues just at the
start.

I’m going to look at the A to Z Mysteries book and tell students that we started reading this without
really paying attention so we might’ve missed a lot of clues in there. Rereading can help us find those
clues. You may want to reread some parts of your book like I will with our read-aloud. The excerpts that I
need to read are in Lucy Calkins’ curriculum book, so I will be reading them from there as there are spots
to pause and show my own thinking. At this point, I’ll be referring to the book pretty heavily as there are
many spots to read from and questions to ask.

C. Independent Worktime
Students will be independently reading for the remainder of reading.

III. Evaluate
I will be walking around and checking in with students on what clues they might have noticed so far in
their reading.

IV. Extend
In a future lesson, students will be taught how to use their clues for predicting. For an extension activity
or task, students could try to use those clues to predict what will happen in the mystery plot.

V. Differentiation
For my lower-level students, they are usually the ones who receive extra support due to IEPs, 504s, or
being ELL students. However, for my students who are reading at grade level or are working to be at
grade level, I will be meeting with them first to scaffold their learning with their book.

For my higher-level students, this will be differentiated as they are reading higher-level, more complex
books. On Tuesday, all students picked 1 or 2 mystery books based on their book levels. The higher the
level students are, the more complex their book plot is. With this in mind, students who are at higher
levels of reading will have harder clues to look for and recognize.