Unsolved Mysteries: a WebQuest
Tuesday, July 3rd by carla
My ninth graders had to do a research paper. Not a single one of us was looking forward to this unit. They didn’t find writing appealing; I dreaded the hours of paper grading that would come at the end. Still, it had to be done.
The research paper unit came hard on the heels of our reading The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Inspired by that and the book Murder, Mischief, and Mayhem by W. Keith Kraus, I decided to steer my students toward topics that involved a mystery. They would research the facts, investigate the leading theories, and propose a solution, either by explaining which theory best accounted for the facts or by proposing an interpretation of their own. In order to help them with the research, I put together a list of a dozen topics and a few good sites to support each one.
Once I realized the task would be Web-based, the WebQuest format was an easy choice.
Because WebQuests are inquiry-based, a research paper is not usually a good product for a WebQuest. I fictionalized the task by asking students to assume that they were preparing background information for an upcoming documentary about the topic of their research. The disguise didn’t fool them for a moment. (Well, I tried.)
So imagine taking 27 chattering freshmen to the computer lab, asking for silence to get everyone on the same page, asking for silence again to explain the task, and then stepping back to see who would need help first. The most amazing thing happened: the room grew quiet. Were they lost? Were they confused? I tried to figure out what was wrong.
They were READING.
Each student had selected a topic in just a couple of minutes. They had found information quickly because the WebQuest provided some links. They had started researching without any of the traditional complaints (”All these topics are boring.” “I can’t think of anything to write about.” “I can’t find anything about my topic.”) They were utterly engrossed in the task at hand.
That WebQuest led to the best batch of research papers I’d seen from freshmen in years. Most of them were about the same topic, but that was OK.
I called the WebQuest Unsolved Mysteries, and it became an annual event. Students would ask on the first day of school, “Is this the class where we study Jack the Ripper?”
Well, sort of!
More WebQuests dealing with mysteries:
Unsolved Mysteries
This WebQuest asks students to assume roles in a collaborative group.
The World’s Unsolved Mysteries
Students present their findings in a slide presentation.
Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History
A list of 21 WebQuests on 6 topics, divided by age group.
