Assistant Editor Jerry Lindsey wrote the feature; photos were supplied.
Over 130 guests entered Morrison High School on March 21, 2023, with little knowledge of what they would experience. They left with an appreciation of student creativity and how resourceful the youth of today can be.
To say that the evening was filled with two Murder Mystery plays intermixed with treats, would be an extreme simplification of what the audience experienced. What they participated in was a creation of imagination, cooperation, organization, writing, editing, and art–to mention a few.
Approximately six weeks ago, students assigned to the Career Development Class instructed by Gwen Rickertsen were presented with the assignment of writing two murder mysteries, with few restrictions or guidelines. They had to develop a storyline and the characters involved and then create a dialog to portray the actions of the story. The goal was to make the audience analyze the scenario and detailed events, to try to solve the mystery.
Attendees were assigned character ownership and given scenarios to read. Those must be combined with the readings of all other characters to, hopefully, solve the mystery of “who was the murderer amongst them?” Details of the crime were added in five different “rounds,” with character readings and detective analysis inter-mixed throughout. The audience attempted to build a case for naming the murderer, among many suspects cleverly written into the scripts.
Socializing time and treats were offered between rounds. Guests used the time to share their observations and listen to evaluations of others.
The evening challenge ended with individual written evaluations of the evening and their personal accusation of the guilty party. To the credit of the class’s creativity, very few attendees accurately solved the murder.
Students sited that one of their goals was to create a “fun event that would make their guests forget their outside problems and enjoy the evening.” That goal was fulfilled. Smiles and comments of appreciation flowed from the attendees that were questioned.
The creation of such a presentation took the skills and abilities of many. But the question has to be asked related to what was gained by the class, and how can this exercise be used to aid in student development? The answer can be found in the many components that students had to incorporate, to develop a successful end result. Team leadership, organization, writing, editing, critical thinking, reading, artwork, food preparation, graphic design, group discussion, meeting setup and tear down are a good list of the tasks used for building this Murder Mystery. All of which are essential to student development and learning.
Students, teachers, and parents collaborated.
A Murderer is Among Us!
