Detective theme

Year 9
 The top five more profitable categories on Amazon

1.Romance ($1.44 billion).

2.Crime/Mystery ($728.2 million). 
3.Religious/Inspirational ($720 million).
4.Science Fiction/Fantasy ($590.2 million). 
5.Horror ($79.6 million). 
Pair talk!
1. What would be your preferable genre to
read/listen/watch? Why?
2. What do you associate with these words: crime, detective
mystery? What comes to your mind when you hear these
words?
3. How mystery stories are different from horror stories?
4. Why do you think people love detective/mystery stories?
What makes them so popular?
How
perceptive/observant
are you?

There has been 21

changes done during
the filming.
Did you notice them?
Discussion/questions
1. Describe the line of your thoughts while
watching this short film. Who do you think is
the killer? What about all the signs that
appeared during the film?
2. What kind of character is the woman in the
film? Is she aware of her actions? Why yes/no?
 Riddles of the
day
Empty Cell Mystery
Andy is put in a cell with a dirt
floor and only one window. The
window is too high for him to
reach. The only thing in the cell
is a shovel. He won’t be able to
get any food or water and only
has two days to escape or he’ll
die. Andy can’t dig a tunnel
because it will take him much
longer than two days to do it.
How will Andy escape from the
cell?
Answer

Andy has to use the

shovel to create a pile
of dirt under the
window so he can
climb up onto it and
escape from the cell.
 Love at the
funeral
A girl is at the funeral of her mother.
She meets a nice guy that she didn’t
know who also was at the funeral and
they hit it off. She was busy at the
funeral and didn’t have time to ask
him for his number before he left.
She tried really hard to track him
down, but no one knew who he was
or how to contact him. A few days
later her sister dies and the police
suspect it to be a murder. Who killed
her sister?
Answer

She killed her sister.

She was hoping that
if someone else in her
family died, the man
she met at her
mother’s funeral
would show up again.
A Japanese ship was leaving the port and on its way to
open sea. The captain went to go oil some parts of the
ship and took his ring off so it wouldn’t get damaged.
He left it on the table next to his bunk. When he
returned, it was missing. He had suspected three crew
members could be guilty and asked them what they
had been doing for the ten minutes that he had been
gone.
The cook said, “I was in the kitchen preparing
tonight’s dinner.”
The engineer said, “I was working in the engine room
making sure everything was running smoothly.”
The seaman said, “I was on the mast correcting the
flag because someone had attached it upside down by
mistake.”
The captain immediately knew who it was. How?
Answer

It was clearly the

seaman. It was a
Japanese ship and a
Japanese flag is white
with a single red dot
in the middle. It can’t
be hung upside down.
On the first day of school, someone murdered a
history teacher. There were four people at the school
that the police suspected had done it: the landscaper,
a math teacher, a basketball coach, and the principal.
These were their alibis:
The landscaper said he was outside mowing the lawn.
The math teacher said he was giving a mid-year test.
The basketball coach said he was running practice
drills with his players.
The principal said she was in her office.
After giving their alibies, the police arrested the killer
immediately. Who killed the history teacher and how
did the police know?
Answer

The math teacher killed

the history teacher. He
claimed that he was
giving a mid-year test,
but it was the first day
of school.
Watch the short
film ”The
shovel”
Information on the film’s characters

Paul’s neighbours:
• Hank, Joanie and the dog
Dusty
•Paul Mullin

Sheriff
During watching

How would you explain the fact that the

shovel is back at Paul’s and Hank is down in
the grave?
Think of any possibilities that come to your
mind. Any!(09:35)
After watching

1. How the story ended?

2. What do you think happend
earlier at Hank’s house?
What really happened?
Write a letter of confession
Imagine you are the sheriff from the story. Write a
letter telling what really happened that evening at
Hank’s house. Try to come up with a credible
explainaition accoring to the information you got
from the text. Try to fill that hole in the story.
One reason for writing a confession letter is
to show remorse and explain why you did
what you did.

Read example
 Terms

• Look at the vocabulary that is in the envelop

• Together try to guess what the words mean
and say thier definitions in English
• Check with the key if your own definitions
are correct
• Play time!
 In other words
oplay the game pair against a pair
ouse your mobile phone to take time
oEach pair has 30 second to guess as many words as
possible
oPlay 3 rounds
oSum up all points
Vocabulary & Bingo
• work in pairs
• read the terms for each other
• make sure you understand all the terms
Vocabulary work
You are going to work with your classmate on
vocabulary worksheet

Learn the words and be prepared for a quiz

DETRITUS- waste material or rubbish, especially left after a particular event
BEHEST- at somebody’s behest- because someone asked or ordered you to do something
CHASTEN- to make someone aware of failure or having done something wrong
EPHIMERA- objects that, when they were produced, were not intended to last a long time or were specially
produced for one occasion
AFOOT – happening, being planed or prepared
ATTACHÉ- a person who works in an embassy and has a particular area of responsibilities in which they have a
special knowledge
ASSET- useful or valuable quality, skill or person
CONDESCENDING- treating someone as if you are more important or more intelligent than them
CAREEN- to go forward quickly, while moving from side to side
BAUBLE- a piece of bright but cheap jewellery
PROVIDENCE- an influence that is not human in origin and is thought to control people’s lives (divnie providence)
NULLIFY- to make something to have no value, to make a legal agreement or decision have no legal force
TINCTURE- a medicine that consists of a mixture of alcohol and a small amount of a drug
 English Swedish
DETRITUS slam/avnötningsprodukter
BEHEST befallning
CHASTEN bestraffa/luttra
EPHIMERA kortlivad sak
AFOOT på gång/i görningen
ATTACHÉ person som jobbar på en ambassad
ASSET Tillgång/fördel
CONDENSCENDING nedlåtande
CAREEN att luta åt sidor när man går
BAUBLE glittrande men billig smycke
PROVIDENCE försyn
NULLIFY upphäva avtalet/valet
TINCTURE tinktur
 Detective fiction film

Your task is to watch

carefully with all your
senses and find out what
really happened with
Harlan Thrombey.

Detective Benoit Blanc must

go through a web of lies
and red herrings to uncover
the truth.

 
 What is the difference?
CLUES RED HERRING

piece of evidence a FALSE clue which

points the reader/viewer
onto the wrong trail and
puts off solving of the
mystery
Keep notes!
While we watch the film you will keep notes for
each character on any information you may think
is important, as well as evidence that may lead
you to conclude they are the murderer.
Questions to discuss

1. What was Harlen’s plan for Marta to get away

from the list of suspects? What did she have to
do after the unfortunate mix up of medicine?
2. What happens when the family is waiting for
the will reading? What do we find out about
Ransom?
3. What would you do if you were in Marta’s
place?
Questions to discuss

1. What does ”foul play” mean?

2. Why do you think is Ransom helping Marta
to cover up the truth?
3. Marta finds an envelop with the letter
saying ”I know what you did.” who is it
from you think?
Questions to discuss

1.Re-tell what really happened and who

hired Mr. Blanc?
2.What is your opinion of the story?
Things you like and things you found
strange about it?
Literary terms for Mistery Fiction (worksheet)

You are going to get a list of literary

terms which you will give an example
from the film.
For each term write how we see that in
the film ”Knives out”
Your solution!
Before we watch the last part of the film, you will write in 100-150
words who you think commited the murderer. Remember, you will
need to answer this with:

1. at least 3 pieces of evidence from the film that causes you to

suspect them
2. an explainaition of what thier motovation for murder was
3. how they completed the murderer.
Begin like this:

In my opinion it was….because…
The person who committed the crime is… for the simple
reason that…

All evidence show that the person who killed Harlan is…
CREATIVE WRITING
Theme activity!
One of the best things about this film is that it’s one of the few films
that I’ve ever seen that has a theme, that if you are good, kind and
honest person who tries to do the right thing, that you will beat
others who break rules, lie, cheat and steal.

In at least 200 words write answering one of the two prompts and
make sure to reference at least three direct moments from the film.
Prompts!
1. Do people in reality get further in life by being kind
and honest, like the film claims, or do people who
are mean and lie get further in real life.
2. Is there another theme present in this film, like:
friendship, love, brotherhood or else? Using three
direct examples from the film, write and argue that
this theme is both present and important in the
film.
Crime and punishment- rough planing
1. Types of crime
2. Difference between punishemnt in Sweden and in USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaPBcUUqbew
3. Reading about different crime and punishment in other countries
4. Reading short story ”A shovel with my name on it”
5. Watching a film?
6. Writing a letter of confession.
7. Working on a power point about famous criminals
Different types of crime (vocabulary)
https://www.slideshare.net/janet25/crime-vocabulary

https://andrealessons.blogspot.com/2012/04/43-crime-vocabulary.htm
l
Reading short stories
• The Man on the Beach
 Final assignment- creative writing
You are going to write your own mystery story. Get inspiration from the movie, short story, and other examples we
discussed in class and create your own text. Your text needs to be between 300-500 words. You will have two
lessons to complete the task and hand in your first draft.

• There are a few things you need to include in the story:

1. Setting
2. Crime
3. A victim
4. Culprit
5. A detective
6. Clues
7. Red herring
8. Suspense
9. Resolution
 Discussion
1) What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘mystery’?
(2) Do you think that some people can predict the future?
(3) Do you like reading mystery books or watching mystery movies?
(4) What world’s mystery would you really like to be solved?
(5) Do you believe that there are things in our universe that cannot be explained?
Can you give some examples?

(6) Is mystery in our lives good? Does it make our life any better?
(7) Would you be a good detective in solving mysteries? Why yes, why
not?
(8) What is the best mystery movie ever?
(10) Have you ever experienced something that you couldn’t explain?
National Test Pairs
1. Vilma, Vendla
2. Tilda, Veronika
3. Annie D, Elvira
4. Annie K, Jakub
5. Jaxxon, Efe
6. Elmer, Gustav
7. Jonathan, Leo
8. Anian, Sion
9. Frank, Sagad
10. Julia, Noelia
11. Davina, Nil
12. Selena, Tatiana
13. Alex, Sion
14. Mattias, Edwin
15. Shahd Annie K (2x)