Mystery Story Writing: Narratives with a Twist

What if you teach multiple sections of ELA? You know you have to teach narrative writing, but don't want to be repetitive.

So what are your options? Here's what I've done:

• Personal narrative

• Realistic fiction

• Fiction in response to reading

• Fantasy fiction

I needed something else for my 7th grade. I always like to do a reading unit before a writing unit that segways into the writing unit. My first step was determining what kind of reading I wanted to do that was engaging. Here are all the READING units I've done with 7th:

• Investigating characterization

• Historical fiction

• Memoir

• Online research

I wanted to make sure I chose something that I didn't already do with my 6th (realistic fiction, dystopian, social issues, research with books, graphic novels). The plan was to this towards the end of the school year, so I didn't have time to do a massive book club unit.

What I always do when planning units is think about what I like to read. And I love mystery! I decided to do a mystery short story unit. I ended up using a bunch of stuff I found on TpT for this, so I don't have a massive unit to share here, but it mostly just used some short stories focusing on the key elements of mystery. We also kicked it off with a murder mystery that the students really liked.

The Writing Unit

Brainstorming Ideas

The first thing I want students to determine is the mystery itself. We focus on the different types of crimes that could occur. I try to keep it focused on simple crimes/mysteries...someone or something goes missing, someone gets lost, a murder (PG-13 at most), something stolen, etc. I've had a few students go in the science fiction route more, which is cool and I'd love to maybe go in that direction more in the future.

From there, I like to do scene writing with them. Instead of focusing so much on the components of a good story in the beginning, I like for them to try out their story in the form of a scene first. If it doesn't work in the form of a scene, they need to change up their story.

Characters

This slide takes some time and it's important to do some kind of reading before, focusing on the same character types. They ultimately need to decide who committed the crime, who are the victims, and who is solving it. I include a bunch of other little nuances that are important to develop.

They develop:

• Detective

• 2 suspects

• A culprit

• Witness

Here's a glimpse of the slide they do:

The Plan

I use my story structure for this but tweak it to focus on mystery. They've used it A LOT with me, so they are familiar with it. I also have them gather evidence that would be in their stories. This is crucial in building a mystery. We discuss foreshadowing and irony (slides are in the unit).

Drafting

As I do with all of the work my students do, I wrote my own story to be a model. I think this is so important to show students you are a writer, too.

I break each section each day...so 5 days total. They do end up needing a few days more after that, but I show each section separately. I read my section out loud while they actively highlight specific components of the story.

Eventually they write their final drafts, do some peer reviewing, and publish on Padlet!

Bottom Line

If you are looking to change up narrative writing, try mystery writing. It's a great way to connect to reading. There are also lots of ways to bring in some television shows!

You can get this entire unit below!

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