Overview

What is the “Mysteries” approach?

“Mysteries” lessons are designed as stand-alone projects which each last 3-4 hours.
Through engaging topics, they teach skills of problem formulation, deductive reasoning, independent research, groupwork and structured writing.
There is a standard teacher lesson plan and student record sheet / markscheme for each activity.

Also available is a complete case study of the “Iceman Mystery”, with all the resources needed to run the Mystery with your class!

How do they work?

• Students are presented with a “starter image” and a brief roleplay – neither of which comes with any explanation.
• Based on these, the class then comes up with a series of preliminary questions for investigation (e.g. “Who is this?”, “Why did they…?”, “When did…?”, “What is…?”)
• The students are then presented with more images to help formulate fresh questions, amend existing ones or even forming provisional answers.
• This question formulation / resolution process then continues with a series of information slips shared amongst the class in groups.
• Finally, the class settles upon the most important questions to investigate and each student produces a written report which is graded against a standardised markscheme.
• Specific credit is given to students who demonstrate evidence of independent research: to this end, the teacher could construct a QR Treasure Hunt to accompany the exercise which students could complete at breaktimes. Here is an case study of a QR Treasure Hunt for the Franklin Expedition Mystery.

What’s the point?

The “History Mysteries” serve a number of very useful purposes:

• They develop important skills of question formulation, deduction, reasoning skills, groupwork and structured writing.
• As “stand alone” projects they are a great way of adding variety into a scheme of work with a minimum of fuss.
• They can be used with any year group and ability range: each investigation automatically expands in scope depending on the questions and research abilities of each student.
• The allow the teacher to cover interesting topics which don’t otherwise neatly “fit” into an existing scheme of work.
• They are (hopefully) good fun!