eMysteries Toolkit

The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. [Project Number: 2019-1-DE03-KA201-060127] 30 enhance a student’s ability to acquire the concepts and language while being learned in a creative process. During role-play students can improve their ability to produce language, increase their creativity and improve their ability to work cooperatively in groups and orality. Students can also create their own mystery stories and characters and act the plot. Dialogue Journals The dialogue journal is one form of writing which supports written conversations between a student and the teacher who communicate on a regular basis over the school year. Dialogue journals can take the form of a special notebook that a student chooses for this purpose, or through an exchange of documents where students write about their solutions to puzzles, riddles, and mysteries. The purpose of dialogue journals is to support the development of students’ reading and writing skills, allow for personal expression which may be hindered in the classroom and enable teachers to get to know students in a way not possible through classroom activities by keeping track on their writing progress. Some practical examples for introducing close reading activities through the use of detective stories are presented in the next section. 2.2. Practical Teaching Examples The following examples for teaching mystery detective stories have been divided and presented in the following types: paper-based, digital and verbal-visual examples. Paper-based examples This section summarizes paper-based practical examples that can be used by teachers during the teaching of mystery detective stories. Encourage students to practice silent reading, write journal entries in combination with straight reading and read-aloud experiences while reading mystery detective stories from books (Winters, 1999). Select a number of different words from the story, at least 50 words, and ask students to work on the meaning of those words by working on targeted exercises. This activity will help students to write down the meaning of these words and to explore the words that are unknown to them (Winters, 1999).