Should Murder Mysteries Be Used in Classrooms?

Should Murder Mysteries Be Used in Classrooms?

The scene is very troubling.

White lines mark the place on the floor where a person has fallen -- dead. There is blood covering the floor. There is blood on the walls.

Police officers and a detective examine evidence in the apartment: a broken window, a bloody¹ glove and knife, dozens of photographs thrown onto the floor.

If you had to guess what this scene is, you might say it is a terrible crime scene.

But actually, it could be a lesson in an English class.

Some English teachers around the world are using nontraditional materials – such as murder mysteries – to keep their students interested. And it’s not just teachers. Organizations like the British Council are also using murder mysteries to teach English.

As a lesson plan, a murder mystery offers basic questions for students to answer: Who is the victim? Who is the suspect? How did the murderer kill the person and with what weapon? Where did the murder happen: What is the setting? Why did the murder happen: What is the motive²?

Murder mysteries also give a chance for role-playing, a technique long used in the language learning classroom. Students can take turns playing the detective, the witnesses and the suspects.

Teachers who use murder mysteries in the classroom have another reason – they are fun. There is something appealing about mysteries and solving a crime.

Students may agree. The book company Scholastic³ recently asked children what kinds of books they like to read most. Mysteries were at the top of the list.

This is hardly a surprise.

Many children in the U.S. grow up reading mysteries of Nancy Drew and the Hardy⁴ Boys. The murder mystery board game Clue -- where players need to find who killed whom, with what weapon and where -- has been popular in the U.S. since the 1950s.

And the character Sherlock Holmes created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has been popular in its many versions for decades.

So, many people like mysteries. And teachers are using that to help them in the classroom.

Recently, The Atlantic magazine published a story on a teacher using murder mysteries to teach her class.

Jeni Peake teaches English for the Cambridge School in Lisbon, Portugal. She began using murder mysteries to make teaching and learning grammar more fun.

Jeni Peake says her students use the murder mystery to interview each other. They are looking for answers to those important questions we talked about earlier: who, what, where, when, why and how. They also must use different verb tenses to describe the events to the “detective.” And when describing the weapon, setting and motive, students must find the right vocabulary.

In The Atlantic article, one of Peake’s students says role-playing and having a clear goal of finding the murderer keeps the students focused.

But is using murder to teach appropriate? Some critics say no.

Janet Isserlis is an expert of teaching English as a Second Language at the Rhode Island Adult Education Professional Development Center. For several decades, she has taught refugees⁵ from many countries around the world.

Isserlis says that for many people -- but particularly many English language learners -- the idea or notion⁶ of making fun of murder may be distressing⁷.

“Particularly with English language learners (ELL), so many ELLs come from countries where people have experienced violence caused by political upheaval⁸ and war. And so, the notion making fun and enjoying a murder mystery may not be enjoyable for those people.”

Isserlis says that language and language learning is innately⁹, or naturally, a social process. People come together and often share personal details. She says she learned early in her career to avoid questions that brought up painful memories. Instead, she focused on the present and asked questions that were in the students’ comfort zones.

“I think, until you get to know who the learners are, you want to avoid questions about home life, about family, certainly about war and about violence. Language is innately a social process and language learning is certainly social. As people come together and know about each other, they will start to share what they’re comfortable sharing...”

Teacher Jeni Peake says that murder mysteries offer great chances for role-playing as well as question-and-answer activities. Isserlis says murder mysteries may provide rich details and complicated scenarios¹¹. But she adds, there are other, less violent, choices available. Everyday life, she says, can provide enough material for teachers to use.

“Some of those murder mysteries provide very detailed¹² and rich and complicated scenarios. But I think there are other ways to look at complicated and rich things that happen every day either through people watching, talking about who you see on the bus, or any number of things such as that.”

Janet Isserlis adds that even if a student is an adult and has not experienced war or violence, they may find the topic of murder upsetting. Jeni Peake says her students enjoy using murder mysteries in the classroom.

What do you think? Should murder mysteries be used to teach English in a classroom?

Let us know in the Comments Section or join our conversation about this topic on Facebook.

Words in This Story

setting – n. the place and conditions in which something happens or exists

motive – n. a reason for doing something

role-playing – n. an activity in which people do and say things while pretending to be someone else or while pretending to be in a particular situation

detective – n. a police officer whose job is to find information about crimes that have occurred and to catch criminals

appropriate – adj. right or suited for some purpose or situation

notion – n. an idea or opinion

innately – adj. existing from the time a person or animal is born

comfort zone – n. a place, situation, or level where someone feels confident and comfortable

comfortable – adj. not causing any physically¹³ unpleasant feelings : producing physical comfort

complicated – adj. having many parts or steps

scenario¹⁰ – n. a description of what could possibly happen

1 bloody   

adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染

参考例句：

• He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
• He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。

2 motive   

n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的

参考例句：

• The police could not find a motive for the murder.警察不能找到谋杀的动机。
• He had some motive in telling this fable.他讲这寓言故事是有用意的。

3 scholastic   

adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的

参考例句：

• There was a careful avoidance of the sensitive topic in the scholastic circles.学术界小心地避开那个敏感的话题。
• This would do harm to students' scholastic performance in the long run.这将对学生未来的学习成绩有害。

4 hardy   

adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的

参考例句：

• The kind of plant is a hardy annual.这种植物是耐寒的一年生植物。
• He is a hardy person.他是一个能吃苦耐劳的人。

5 refugees   

n.避难者，难民( refugee的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The UN has begun making airdrops of food to refugees. 联合国已开始向难民空投食物。
• They claimed they were political refugees and not economic migrants. 他们宣称自己是政治难民，不是经济移民。

6 notion   

n.概念，意念，看法

参考例句：

• One common Chinese notion is that the elders ought to be respected.中国人共有的一种观念是长者应受到尊敬。
• He had a sudden notion to visit all his relatives.他心血来潮，突然想去拜访他所有的亲戚。

7 distressing   

a.使人痛苦的

参考例句：

• All who saw the distressing scene revolted against it. 所有看到这种悲惨景象的人都对此感到难过。
• It is distressing to see food being wasted like this. 这样浪费粮食令人痛心。

8 upheaval   

n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱

参考例句：

• It was faced with the greatest social upheaval since World War Ⅱ.它面临第二次世界大战以来最大的社会动乱。
• The country has been thrown into an upheaval.这个国家已经陷入动乱之中。

9 innately   

adv.天赋地；内在地，固有地

参考例句：

• Innately conservative, Confucius was fascinated by the last of these disciplines. 由于生性保守，孔子特别推崇“礼”。 来自英汉非文学 - 文明史
• Different individuals are innately fitted for different kinds of employment. 不同的人适合不同的职业，这是天生的。 来自互联网

10 scenario   

n.剧本，脚本；概要

参考例句：

• But the birth scenario is not completely accurate.然而分娩脚本并非完全准确的。
• This is a totally different scenario.这是完全不同的剧本。

11 scenarios   

n.[意]情节；剧本；事态；脚本

参考例句：

• Further, graphite cores may be safer than non-graphite cores under some accident scenarios. 再者，根据一些事故解说，石墨堆芯可比非石墨堆芯更安全一些。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Again, scenarios should make it clear which modes are acceptable to users in various contexts. 同样，我们可以运用场景剧本来搞清楚在不同情境下哪些模式可被用户接受。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

12 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

13 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。