Dead Author: Murder Mystery in the Media Center

DISCLAIMER: No authors were actually harmed in this activity. 😂 They weren't really at our school.

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Yesterday was one of our Gifted seminar days and I'm so thankful our GAPP team lets me be part of these seminar days. They are SO much fun!

Many of the rotations were CSI-type activities. I didn't feel very confident in my ability to do something like that successfully but I started poking around the internet and found several murder/mysteries for schools or Language Arts classes.

My Scholastic Book Fair got delivered Thursday and I wanted to go ahead and have it set up so it would be ready for next week and so I wouldn't need to spend the weekend at school preparing. How do you do a murder/mystery in the Media Center in the middle of a Book Fair?

You make your own story around the Book Fair!

Our students are really into books and love when I talk to them about the authors so this was perfect.

On Tuesday, I was doing the Emoji story starter activity with Amanda Ross's classes (which is super fun and hilarious and teaches great writing skills if you set the activity up right) and I was telling her what I was planning for the GAPP day but I had to work out the details of the story. She got so excited and grabbed it and started working. I taught her classes and she wrote our murder/mystery. I helped her with details and specifics about the authors and their personalities. She did such a great job! After we finished, I took it to our School Resource Officer and told him what I was doing. I had him look at it and he loved it! I went around to our other staff members who were written in as suspects to make sure they knew about it. Our Head Custodian (who is TOO good to me!) gave me some supplies to use in my crime scene. Our Digital Arts teacher, Chris Young, volunteered to be my dead body and let me tape off his shape on the floor near the Book Fair. I'm so thankful for all the people who constantly help me! Team work really does make the dream work! Just setting it up was exciting!

Because we had 27-29 kids in each rotation, I put them into 11 groups. Each group represented a character in the plot. They had just the information they needed about who they were. They had to go around to the other groups and ask/answer questions and fill in their handout to help them keep track of all the information. Once they had everything they needed to know, they had to get together as a group and decide who the killer was based on the facts. Each group had to tell us which character they were, present their claim of who they thought did it and why, and then I told them who the real killer was. It was SO interesting to see their thought process, watch them work through the clues, argue with each other, and use the evidence and clues. Out of all the kids all day, only one group thought it was me. I kept asking all day why no one thought I did it and they all said that I'd never kill an author because I like them too much. That clearly, I was framed. 💗 I love that they have my back, even if it is a fake murder.

I've put our script below. If you are really loving this activity, that's awesome! I'm glad to share to help inspire you but PLEASE create your own or ask permission before you just take this. I didn't write most of it, my wonderful friend and Reading teacher did. I'm sharing the details so you can see how we did it and how it worked.

The kids got the background information, their character info, and the tracking sheet. That's it. They did go examine the crime scene, but honestly, there wasn't anything there that wasn't in their information they were given. It was fun to have one though. The kids spent a lot of time really studying the scene and the evidence there. I was impressed.

I've deleted the solution because I want to know who YOU think did it! Drop it in the comments below or comment on my social media post. I want to know what you think!

Background Information:

During the setup for the Book Fair Grand Opening a scream was heard coming from the media center. It’s 8:30 am. A few minutes later the dead body of Jason Reynolds, the award winning author of Long Way Down, All American Boys  and Ghost, was found under a fallen bookshelf. Also found were a number of items that may lead us to the killer, a sharpie for signing books with the initials K.A. on them,  a copy of Dear Martin by Nic Stone autographed for Mrs. Friday, a photo of Jason with Mrs. Friday. At the moment these are the main suspects but everyone who was at Southwest to help with the book fair and saw or spoke to Jason Reynolds needs to be questioned.

Solution:

Jason Reynolds and Nic Stone have known each other from various authors conferences. Nic was a little jealous that Jason’s books always seem to be apart of the book fair, and Ghost was chosen as a SSYRA book this year, and her books were not apart of the book fair that came to Southwest. She knew the kids at The Great Southwest liked her book, but it was apparent that Jason’s books and Kwame’s books were checked out more recently.

Your name is: Nic Stone - Author of Dear Martin & Odd One Out Your role and feelings about the book fair: You are excited to be at Southwest for this book fair to talk to kids that have read your book. You are especially happy that your BFF Tiffany Jackson is here with you. You are sporting your favorite green lip stick, even though you are a little upset that your book is not being sold at this year’s book fair (WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT IS TOO MATURE?!?!?! IT ISN'T!) and that all of the other authors here have books at the book fair. You kept looking at all the books, when the custodian turned off the lights in the media center. You tried to conjure your patronus but it obviously didn’t work.   Last time you saw Jason: You passed by him as he was walking into the media center, alone, and you were on your way out to do an interview with Summer Sanders.

Your name is: Kwame Alexander - Author of Swing, The Crossover & many others Your role and feelings about the book fair: This is now your second visit to Southwest and you can’t wait to see how many kids have finished reading your book Swing. You were just here recently and feel like a VIP. You know all these students love your books and you are glad to be here to help Mrs. Friday out. You’ve known Jason for a long time and you are really proud to call him a friend. You talk to each other often and even had him on one of your episodes of Bookish. Last time you saw Jason: Mrs. Friday had just asked you to come and sign a few more copies of Swing, as you wondered around the school to find your favorite sharpie, you walked past Jason as he just finished up an interview with Summer Sanders.

Your name is: Brendan Kiely - co author of All American Boys; author of Tradition Your role and feelings about the book fair: You are a little tired because you have been going around the country doing book talks with Jason about All American Boys, you like Jason’s company for the most part but after so many cities and so many airplanes it is starting to get to you and you wish you could take a break, but Jason is so eager to visit as many schools as possible and your publisher is really pushing you to go along with his ideas. Last time you saw Jason: You arrived at the school together, but you went to the nurse’s clinic, that is attached to the media center, alone, to lay down on one of the cotts to catch up on some sleep. You told everyone you woke up to the sound of Jason’s scream and a loud thud and came running to the dark media center and bumped into some of the bookcases that began to topple.

Your name is: Mrs. Friday - Media specialist Your role and feelings about the book fair: You are beyond excited and super stressed. It is amazing that you got so many awesome authors to agree to come to Southwest for the book fair, but it causes stress because you have so much to manage. Some of the authors have picky taste and tight schedules to work with. You are worried the kids will say something they shouldn’t. Teachers are cranky the kids are missing class again for your events. There are so many things for you to keep up with that you are stressed to the breaking point. You are managing to get all of the authors to sign a few copies of books to auction off at the book fair and to get a picture with each of the authors for your wall. You haven’t seen Brendan Kiely since he arrived at school, and he missed his scheduled book signing and interview with Jason. Last time you saw Jason: He was in the cafeteria doing a book signing and you saw him walk over to get interviewed with Summer, you then left the cafeteria to find Kwame for his book signing

Your name is: Ally Carter - Author of Not if I Save you First & Embassy Row series Your role and feelings about the book fair: This book fair is very exciting for you to be invited to. You are just so thrilled that you are going to get to meet kids who have read your books and help promote your newest book Not if I Save you First, a very suspenseful novel. You are a little shy and keep to yourself, making it to all of your scheduled events on time, you really like Mrs. Friday’s energy and are trying to help this day go as smoothly as possible. As you walked through the book fair set up you noticed some of the book cases were not as stable as others, but you didn't want to worry Mrs. Friday with this, so you kept it to yourself. Last time you saw Jason: Most of these authors publish books about social injustices and your books tend to deal with lighter-hearted subjects. You are thrilled to be here but feel a little out of place. You think that you may have seen Jason walking over to the media center, where you think you saw the shadow of another person, but then you were taken by surprise when Kwame bumped into you looking for his sharpie.

Your name is: Leo - Head custodian of Southwest Your role and feelings about the book fair: You are very busy helping Mrs. Friday set up all of the book fair cases. As you put them together you noticed that a few had loose parts, but you have too much to do so you are not worried about it. You know this is a big deal for the school but you had to be here early and stay late on Thursday to help with the set up, and now you are here extra early again, so your attention to detail isn’t the best. Last time you saw Jason: There is so much to be done you have no idea who has walked past you or not. When you left the media center last, you turned off all the lights when you noticed there was a nice looking lady with green lipstick thumbing through all of the books on the shelf.

Your name is: Veronica Roth - Author of the Divergent series and Carve the Mark Your role and feelings about the book fair: This is a nice quaint book fair that you are attending as a favor to your publisher, in order to help promote your new book: THE END AND OTHER BEGINNINGS: Stories from the Future. You know you are the only one here that has had your books turned into a movie but you don’t understand why everyone assumes you are so snobby. Your books have been out for so long that  you don’t seem to be as excited as some of these other authors who have books that have recently jumped on the NYT Best-Seller list. Last time you saw Jason: This morning all the authors met in the cafeteria for introductions and to get their itenary for the day. That was the first and the last time you saw Jason, because you were too busy touring the school campus with the principal.

Your name is: Tiffany Jackson - Author of Allegedly & Monday’s Not Coming Your role and feelings about the book fair: This is a very exciting event for you. You are here with your BFF Nic Stone celebrating books and kids and kids reading books! You have had to talk to Nic about not being so upset about her book not being sold at the book fair this year (Your books aren’t either--they keep insisting your books are too mature for middle school. Whatever! Mrs. Friday knows what's up and has your books even if the book fair company didn't send any). You encourage her that she will have her time. You are excited to get acquainted with Jason and his co-author Brendan though you are a little worried that they don’t seem to be as in-synced as they usually are, and then Brendan disappears. Sounds like something out of one of your books! Last time you saw Jason: You were talking with Jason on his way out of the cafeteria, asking about where Nic and Brendan were. Brendan missed his interview and Nic was next but nowhere in sight.

Your name is: Gordon Korman - Author of Restart and many others Your role and feelings about the book fair: You are feeling a little intimidated by all these new young and hip authors. You can tell that the kids at Southwest definitely have a liking for Kwame and Jason because the lines at their book signing tables are way longer than the line at yours. You try to use the fact that both you and Jason have SSYRA books this year to try and start a conversation with him. You are a best-selling author of lots of books too! You can tell he seems like a nice person but he brushes you off and it seems like he has a lot on his mind or is looking for someone. Last time you saw Jason: exiting the cafeteria with Tiffany Jackson chatting his ear off.

Your name is: Mr. Shaw - Principal of Southwest Your role and feelings about the book fair: You know Mrs. Friday is so excited for this, you are just worried about making sure all the kids stay safe and nothing bad happens. You are caught off guard when Veronica Roth asks you to give her a tour of the school. You don’t want to seem rude and want you show off your school so you abandon your post outside the Media center to walk with her and show her the other parts of the school. People constantly say you have a serious look on your face so Mrs. Friday put you in front of the doors greeting people to help you practice smiling. You are worried you just look mad. Last time you saw Jason: You met him this morning, but then you had to stand guard outside of the media center to keep track of who was going in and out, talk to the Media, and to make sure no books were stolen.

Your name is: Summer Sanders - News interviewer Your role and feelings about the book fair: You are so thrilled to get to interview so many big name authors all at once. You have read all of their books in preparation, as a news anchor who sees a lot of crazy stories, you really liked Tiffany Jackson and her thriller/suspense type books. But you were extremely excited to interview Nic Stone because you heard she was such an electric person but she never showed up to her interview before all the mayhem began. Last time you saw Jason: He was the last person you interviewed, in the cafeteria, you could tell he was upset because Brendan never showed up.

Name	Motive	Alibi	Clue
Nic Stone
Kwame Alexander
Brendan Kieley
Mrs. Friday
Veronica Roth
Leo Rangel
Ally Carter
Tiffany Jackson
Gordon Korman
Mr. Shaw
Summer Sanders

The SWMS 20 Book Challenge

The #swms20bookchallenge has taken off and spread across the country which is pretty freaking exciting. I've presented several times at conferences and Professional Development days and it has spread across our district and even our state. Recently I began getting emails or direct messages on social media asking me questions about it from all over the country. It's a great program but it is so hard to explain in a brief way, especially in 140 characters or less.

So here ya go...the basics.

How We Started:
We needed something that would really, truly get our students to read. SO VERY MANY of our students come to us significantly below grade level in reading or they've just lost their love for books. Let me be clear, not all of our students meet this description. We had some students who are high-flyers and tons of kids who have always liked to read but we have a large number of students who really struggle. I was a brand new Media Specialist and our Literacy Coach at the time was also brand new to her position. Our school doesn't have Reading Counts or AR. Our school had tried some school-wide reads of a single book but that just wasn't really working anymore. One of the greatest reading teachers of all time, Diamelia Christie, came to me and said she'd been reading Donalyn Miller's books and wanted to do a 20 Book Challenge with her students. She asked me if I could help her with it and help them find books that fit in those categories. After looking at it and talking about it with our Reading Coach and English Department Head, we decided to try and make that our school-wide read for the year instead of just doing one book for the masses.

We took it to our administration and they told us we could try it but they seemed a little skeptical. We took the categories of the books and we ran with it. Within two or three weeks we had it ready to roll out to the whole school. We wanted some accountability so we built a Google Classroom and had a Google Form for each category. The students had to log in and "log" their book by completing the form with a short response question that would tell us if they read the book or not. Once the students logged their book, we read their response and either gave them credit or asked them to resubmit their response. Let me just add, that our ELA Department Head, Katy McGregor, is the Queen of all things Google and she totally rocks my socks off. She makes my life SO much easier. She builds all of our Google stuff and makes us all look smart. 😜

Our Reading Coach at the time, Brandy Griswell, is a rock star of epic proportions (who has since been promoted to an Assistant Principal of Curriculum at another school) and she called ALL the local businesses and got donations for us to give away as prizes. Once a month we'd go into the cafeteria and draw names. The more books logged, the more times your name was in the drawing. We gave away prizes like gift cards to the local Chick-fil-a or the local ice cream joint. The kids really started getting into it. Prizes are not something Donalyn Miller would go for but it works for us. It started out as an incentive and helped motivate the kids to get started.

In December, she started pulling their data and showing it to the team teachers and they were blown away. The students who were actively participating in our challenge had HUGE reading gains in just 3 months. Once they saw the data, the rest of our staff got on board and our admin team really became believers and started promoting the program as hard as they could.

We themed everything around the challenge so it was literally school-wide. I tagged the books on the shelves for which categories they could count as, set up book displays for some categories, and even tagged all the books in the book fair. We made Florida Literacy Week into The 20 Book Challenge Literacy Week. We printed posters and banners and hung our propaganda all over the school.

Results:
We ended up having a ton of books logged (2,828 to be exact) and had 25 students who finished the challenge. We built them swag bags with prizes and new books and then they all got to go to a local restaurant and have lunch with our principal and get to order whatever they wanted on the menu. I'm going to be really honest. We thought the prize was super lame but we couldn't afford anything else. I was blown away by how much the kids loved it and how excited they were to be able to pick whatever they wanted on the menu. We kept them out of class all day and then pulled all the kids who had logged 10 books or more into the cafeteria for a giant ice cream sundae party. They had a great time!

Changes for Year 2:
In the first year, our principal was very clear that the reading should be done outside of the classroom. He didn't want instructional time to be missed. Now, I could spend a solid 4 hours writing about the value of independent reading and discussion in the classroom and how it would meet all the standards and then some but that is another post for another day. We took what we could get in year one. In year two, the students were allowed to read during class for independent reading or as the assignment for when they had finished their work. The students were also given opportunities to log their books during warm up activities during class.

We changed our categories to be more flexible and meet the needs of our students. We found that many of the students who didn't finish the first year, didn't stop reading, they stopped logging because they found books they loved that didn't fit into the categories. We wanted to still challenge the kids but we also wanted to allow them the choice they so desperately crave. We wanted them to read what they love and be able to squeeze it into the challenge.

We worked to adjust the prompts to more closely mirror what they'd see on state tests but still feel like they are just talking about a good book. We wanted the skills tested to shine through with a text they enjoyed. Now let me be clear, we aren't trying to drill the kids to death. We use these prompts and logging their books as a conversation between them and us about the book they read. It isn't a grade or an essay or a test. The students write about the characters, the things that surprised them what they loved or didn't love. We prompt them to think and then respond and then we respond back to them.

We changed our feedback method and started using Google Classroom's grading feature to send individualized feedback to each student and really help them see what they were missing from their responses. With increased participation also came the need for additional grading so both of us (Literacy Coach & Media Specialist) took on that role.

We also added to our list of literacy-based events including Banned Book Week, Book Fair, March Madness Book Tournament, Book Bash, Book Launch Party, etc. and really worked to increase the hype.

We didn't give out any prizes throughout the year. We just had a HUGE celebration day.

Results:
We thought we had huge results for year one but they were just a drop in the bucket compared to our year two. We had the same numbers in December  (year two) as we had at the year's end of year one. We had 38 students finish and 12 teachers too. We scored over 10,000 responses and broke Google Classroom. 82% of our ENTIRE school willingly and actively participated in our challenge. Our students had books with them all the time and not just the ones you'd expect. I could share countless stories of students who had never seen success with reading that finished our challenge this year including students who struggled with English as their second language.

Our celebration day included jump time at a local trampoline park, a catered author lunch with Christina Diaz Gonzalez, an author session with her for all the students who logged 11 books or more, each finisher got an amazing t-shirt and they got a brand new book of their choice.

Changes for Year 3: 
Coming off of year two, the students are excited and so is the staff. We needed to solve some of the issues we found during year two so this year are going from one massive Google Classroom with the whole school in it to two Google Classrooms, one per grade. Katy is a genius and decided we should make one Google Form with 20 sections instead of 20 different Google Forms. This will help us cut down on students logging the same book for more than one category (be it on accident or on purpose). It will also help the students see which books/categories they have credit for and makes the whole process more streamlined for us and the students. We also have new categories that I'm SO excited about. We tie our Sunshine State Young Readers Award (SSYRA) books into the categories and our students can use our Project Lit books for this as well.  My favorite categories for this year are probably A Book Written in Verse, A Diverse Book--meaning a book about someone who is very different than themselves, and A Book You've Previously Abandoned. We are working to push the kids from thinking of reading as school work and seeing it as something they want to do and discuss.

We really love this program and what it does for students. We love the choice the kids have and how it has pushed them so far outside of their comfort zones. When one program can get so many students who come to us below grade level to be excited about the amazing books that are out there, you know you have something magical on your hands. 

This program can be adapted for a single classroom, a grade level, or for your particular school. It is being implemented in about 12 other schools in our district, several across our state, and a few in other states as well. If you aren't ready to start your own challenge but want to join us, please do! Just tweet out your books with our hashtag and tag me on Twitter. We'd love to see it! Currently NYT Best-Selling Author Tiffany Jackson is participating with us because she wants one of our shirts. 

Please feel free to contact me with questions about our program, how it works, or really just anything else. Also, make sure you follow our #swms20bookchallenge hashtag to keep up with all the great things that are happening.