(If You Can Believe It...) Even MORE True Crime!

Anyone who even remotely follows my work knows one thing - for sure - by now. 

I LOVE true crime.

I've shared my materials for The Murder of Allan Ripley and my virtual CSI: AP Language. Now, I have an entire unit. (In my defense, it's what the kiddos wanted... Like over 75% of them.)

Introducing.... my version of Unsolved Mysteries.

[NOTE: The full unit will be for sale on my Teachers Pay Teachers site shortly.]
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Unsolved Mysteries

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You'll notice that the rubric (scroll to the bottom of the inserted page) uses AP Language standards, including: Thesis, Commentary, Intro/Conclusions, Assertions and Evidence, but it also uses some of my own (Revision and Presenting Information).
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Because everything in 2020/2021 must be flexible - that's how I allowed the students pace themselves. I gave them the checklist below and the suggested pacing calendar, but ultimately, everything was given a hard deadline at the end.
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We have student iPads, so I directed them to Anchor, an app that makes podcasts really simple. (It is pretty limited, but at the end of the semester, that isn't necessarily a bad thing). 

If you will be using desktops or laptops, I would recommend Audacity. I've used it in the past with students and they caught on pretty quickly.
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Sample

For a sample, I created a podcast about the Manson murders with my fellow AP teacher. Ours got a little extra (SHOCKING!) so it's over 18 minutes. However, we wanted to be sure that students saw the many different things they could do with audio and discourse. (#noregrets)
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Sample Podcast

As of now, students have (or at least they are pretending to have) completed their research and are putting together scripts. Because they are in groups, they have been pretty self reliant - with me just popping in to suggested resources and remind them about rubric criteria. 

If you're looking for something to end the semester or a break from test prep monotony next semester, I hope you find this helpful.