Related topics: Space, Halloween

Warm-up

FunnyBones – Mystery Tour (5:03) yr7. A somewhat childish story of skeletons going to a mystery party.
Welcome To Mystery yr8. A song by Plain White T’s with lyrics.
Dictionary.com Have the students think of how many different types of mysteries they can come up with. Compare with the 5 categories in Dictionary.com.

Vocabulary

Mystery Vocabulary 1 from Absolutenglish.org
Mystery Vocabulary2 Matching exercise from Absolutenglish.org
Mystery Vocabulary3 The Ingredients of a good detective story. Matching exercise from Absolutenglish.org

Reading

The Murder Mystery Game (1:06). A murder to solve. The answer-link is in the description area. If the students like this, there seems to be 30+ more of them. The text is getting more difficult towards the higher numbers.
Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl Read the short story Ex.1: by Roald Dalh and answer 10 easy questions about the characters and the plot while you read. Click then on Ex.2 and Ex.3. It’s good to have done the vocabulary exercises 1-3 above before reading. (1:1)
8 Haunted Places and the Ghost Stories Behind Them Read about some real ghosts (yr 8)

Listening

Modern Ghost Stories (appr 10 min) Yr7 A series of illustrated stories via UR.se
Mysterious Creatures: Are Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster Real? A 14-min audio from Voice of America. Slow speech, very clear. Have the students retell the stories in small groups.

Lesson Plans

Serial Taxi The film clip is on vimeo and the lesson plan here.
Murder Mystery Two scenes of a Mystery with and without language focus and one of Sherlock Holmes from British Council.

Watching

The Ghost Hitchhiker – Mostly True Stories (8:09) shows two urban legends about ghosts. This may spark a discussion about other urban legends and whether these are to be believed or not.
Top 10 World’s Unsolved Mysteries (15:06) This video is chosen, because it has a voice telling about the mysteries.
World’s 10 Most Incredible Discoveries These 10 mysteries are shown with a simple text, which could be read aloud, stopping at each one. Mute the sound. Only one, The Voynich Manuscript, is the same as in the previous video.
5 Of The World’s Biggest Unsolved Mysteries yr8. These 10 mysteries are shown with a more difficult text, which should preferably be read aloud, stopping at each one. Mute the sound. Only one, The Voynich Manuscript, is the same as in both previous videos.
Amazing Mystery Videos This young website author has collected and organized loads of short mystery videos, 1-2 min each. You could let your students choose which categories they are interested in and then watch some. Suitable as an end of class activity (5-10 min).
The Ghost Hunter yr7. A BBC-series with 20 episodes approx. 20 min each on YouTube. Highly recommended.

Speaking

Minute Mysteries Tell the students the story and have them ask you yes/no questions until they solve the mystery.
ESL Discussions.com gives 28 questions to discuss in pairs, groups or in class.
Murder Mystery Game is a group game with 12 different characters (a bigger group could be split into two teams). Here are the character descriptions.

Writing

Building Suspence This link shows the place in the middle of a text, where there is a guided writing assignment (6), from a to m.
Writing Mystery Stories Some story starters for mystery stories.

Projects

Top 20 Greatest Mysteries of the World (3:07). This clip only shows the picture, the name and the place. Let the students choose one that they wish to explore in pairs, or do it together in class. Only the first, Stonehenge has been mentioned in one of the previous videoclips (World’s 10 Most Incredible Discoveries).
Make your own mystery story. Have the students plan, practise and film their own mystery story in pairs or groups.

Extra Material

MysteryNet.com features free online mysteries, mystery games and resources on mystery books, tv and movies.
Unexpected Mysteries A frequently updated, serious mystery site. Check the latest mystery news.

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