Strategies
These activities are planned as the introductory unit in my science class, to occur right at the beginning of the year. I always start with general process skills, which include making observations, inferences, predictions, and hypotheses. This unit will begin with a series of short lab activities that will involve making observations and inferences. Once students have a good background on what makes a good observation, I will introduce very short elementary mystery stories that I will read aloud, having students write down their observations while I read. We will then begin discussions of inferences they can make based on their observations. The number one rule for inferences is that they must be logical. They are not necessarily fact until further observations can be made. Students will be given practice in proving whether or not their inferences are correct.
One of the skills tested in North Carolina is listening skills, and students always score lower on this test than on any other reading comprehension type of test. Even the typical above average student tends to score poorly on that test. I expect the read aloud activity to help with those scores.
Students will eventually be assigned a short story in the detective fiction genre. I have chosen the short story "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle because this will give students the opportunity to use clues and make inferences to try to solve a mystery story. Although the crime does involve a murder, there is not a lot of violent detail and body fluids are not involved. Forty-eight of Doyle's stories, including this one, are no longer protected by copyright, so getting copies for all of my students is not an issue. Sherlock Holmes is considered one of the earliest forensic scientists in fiction and many of his methods were used in more modern police training.
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