The document provides a worksheet for students on conventions of detective stories. It includes a list of potential conventions for students to identify as either textual conventions or assumptions by readers based on an excerpt. It also asks students to write a paragraph explaining their answers.
The document provides a worksheet for students on conventions of detective stories. It includes a list of potential conventions for students to identify as either textual conventions or assumptions by readers based on an excerpt. It also asks students to write a paragraph explaining their answers.
The document provides a worksheet for students on conventions of detective stories. It includes a list of potential conventions for students to identify as either textual conventions or assumptions by readers based on an excerpt. It also asks students to write a paragraph explaining their answers.
The document provides a worksheet for students on conventions of detective stories. It includes a list of potential conventions for students to identify as either textual conventions or assumptions by readers based on an excerpt. It also asks students to write a paragraph explaining their answers.
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CAMBRIDGE LOWER SECONDARY ENGLISH 9: WORKSHEET 2C
Name Date
Worksheet 2C 1 Which of the following are conventions of a typical detective story? Place a tick next to your answers. a There is an intelligent detective. b There are creatures from other planets. c Characters sing and perform dance routines. d A detective character usually has a less intelligent companion. e Bad characters wear black and good characters wear white. f There is a mystery or crime to solve. g The two main characters fall in love. h There are clues to the mystery that the reader can enjoy as a puzzle. i There are spacecraft or time travel. j A mystery is solved at the end.
Conventions can be described as the ways in which something is usually done. In fiction, conventions are the ‘rules’ of how certain kinds of stories or texts are normally set out and grouped together – for example, into genres such as science fiction or detective fiction. Some conventions are textual – that is, they are present in the text itself, such as a romance having two characters who fall in love or a sonnet having 14 lines. However, some things you might think are conventions are really just assumptions that readers make, such as thinking that poems have to rhyme. It is useful to analyse stories to identify their textual conventions, and to see how writers sometimes try to overturn readers’ assumptions about a genre.
2 Read this extract from the detective story ‘The Purloined Letter’ by Edgar Allan Poe. An important letter has been stolen and the police speak with master detective Dupin about the search for it.
‘We opened every package and parcel; we not only opened every book, but we turned over every leaf in each volume, not contenting ourselves with a mere shake, according to the fashion of some of our police officers. We also measured the thickness of every book-cover, with the most accurate measurement, and applied to each the most jealous scrutiny of the microscope. Had any of the bindings been recently meddled with, it would have been utterly impossible that the fact should have escaped observation.
Some five or six volumes, just from the hands of the binder, we carefully
‘You explored the floors beneath the carpets?’ ‘Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined the boards with the microscope.’ ‘And the paper on the walls?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You looked into the cellars?’ ‘We did.’ ‘Then,’ I said, ‘you have been making a miscalculation, and the letter is not upon the premises, as you suppose.’ ‘I fear you are right there,’ said the Prefect. ‘And now, Dupin, what would you advise me to do?’ ‘To make a thorough re-search of the premises.’
Examine the list of conventions. Based on text extract in Activity 2, decide whether each convention is a textual convention or an assumption by the reader. Draw lines to indicate your answers. a Characters attempt to solve a mystery. Textual convention b There is dialogue/direct speech between characters. c The villain gets caught at the end. d The detective is male. e The crime will be serious, not trivial.
Assumption f The detective has superior intelligence.
by the g It is set out in paragraphs with punctuated sentences. reader h Less intelligent characters will look foolish next to the detective. i The detective will examine the scene where the mystery began. j The story is set on planet Earth.
