Murder Mystery Lesson 3: Seeing like Sherlock

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 3

Murder Mystery

• The test is on 17 April.
• You are going to write your own murder mystery story in class.
• Handwritten on paper.
• Check planner in Moodle!

Learning objectives for this lesson

1. Become aware of the difference between seeing and observing.
2. How to write a good dialogue.
3. Write a conversation between Sherlock and Watson using your senses.

Click the title below to read the text.

Don’t just see; observe: What Sherlock Holmes can teach us about mindful decisions

What is the main point of the text? 

Write down your answer and discuss in pairs.  

 “You see, but you do not observe.” —  

A Scandal in Bohemia 

Every day, countless items, some glanced, or heard, or felt, or smelled only briefly—perhaps without ever registering in our consciousness—affect our minds and play into our decisions. 

0

How do you show who's saying what?

•  Often, fiction writers start a new paragraph each time the speaker changes.
•  You can also include dialogue tags such as "he said," "she murmured," "I asked." 
• You can skip the dialogue tags when it's obvious who's talking without them. 

Edit dialogue to trim off most of the fat.

 

A lot of what people say is just blah-blah-blah, but you don't want to bore your reader. 

 

Use your senses like Sherlock and Watson

Work in pairs. One of you pretends to be Watson and the other pretends to be Sherlock Holmes. Look around the classroom and see and observe like Sherlock Holmes and Watson would do. Take notes.

• Turn your observations into a typical Sherlock Holmes-Watson conversation. 
• Try to write it down in the style of Sherlock Holmes (150 words)
• Practice it a few times, then you share the outcome with your fellow students in the final 15 minutes of this class.

"When I hear you give your reasons," Watson remarked, "the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning, I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours."

"Quite so," [Sherlock] answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an armchair. "You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room."

"Frequently."

"How often?"

"Well, some hundreds of times."

"Then how many are there?"

"How many? I don't know."

"Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed."

Excerpted from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal in Bohemia by Arthur Conan Doyle