Close Reading Digital Mystery Inference Activity - Who Robbed the Bank?
Close Reading Digital Mystery Inference Activity - Who Robbed the Bank?: Engage your students with a captivating digital close reading inference activity that challenges them to explore and find text evidence, make inferences, and read more closely. This resource provides all the necessary materials to facilitate this fun and creative reading activity in your classroom. Students will have the opportunity to work collaboratively, enhancing their problem-solving and critical-thinking skills as they unravel the mystery together.
The City East Bank is home to a state-of-the-art bank vault, to which few of the employees have access. The bank’s CEO is visiting one of his branches today to do some accounting. However, when he arrives, he discovers the vault is empty. Your students need to figure out who robbed the bank vault.
This is a Google-compatible activity, and students complete all the work on the computer. This works well with distance learning, 1:1 classrooms, remote teaching, Google Classroom, or for online education.
This is included in our best-selling full-year reading program:
>>> Reading Mysteries Digital Program
Included In This Digital Close Reading Inference Mystery Activity:
➡️ Inference Mystery Google Slides: This 15-slide Google Slides presentation serves as the guide for the activity, leading students through the mystery with a captivating backstory, detailed evidence, and thorough explanations for each suspect's innocence or guilt. The slides are crafted to engage students and encourage critical thinking as they analyze the clues and find text evidence.
➡️ Original Narrative Backstory: Use this short story to introduce the mystery. Within the story are hidden clues and subtle hints, and the narrative will engage students' curiosity and initiate the mystery.
➡️ A Variety of Digital Clues and Evidence: Students will receive a variety of digital texts in different forms that include clues and evidence. Students must read the text closely and use their inference skills to analyze each of the clues. There is a social media post, a formal written warning, an email, a social media message, a witness testimony, a job posting, a text message, a receipt, and a medical bill.
➡️ Text Evidence Digital Graphic Organizer: Students will use the provided digital graphic organizer to organize their findings and evaluate the guilt or innocence of each suspect. This tool encourages students to support their conclusions with text evidence from the investigation.
➡️ Teacher Answer Key: Use the detailed answer key integrated into the Google Slides, to efficiently review students' work and share the reasons for each suspect's innocence or guilt.
How The Digital Close Reading Inference Activity Works:
- Decide whether you want students to work in partners, groups, or independently for the activity.
- Use the Google Slides to guide you through each element of the inference activity. The slides will help you introduce the story and evidence.
- Share all the digital evidence to students, allowing them time to read, make inferences, and find text evidence to solve the mystery.
- Once each group has made their final prediction, use the Google Slides to reveal the culprit and review each of the suspects to show the evidence of their innocence or guilt.
What Teachers Are Saying About This Digital Close Reading Inference Activity:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I used this with a higher 6th grade ELA class. They really enjoyed it but it really challenged them. I will be purchasing more to use next year. I like the deeper thinking skills it helped them to develop.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My kiddos absolutely LOVE these mysteries and trying to solve them! It also allows them to practice their inferencing skills which is a win for me!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The kids had such a good time with this. They didn't even realize they were practicing their inferencing skills!
If you like this, you’ll love this resource:
>>> Inference Activities Bundle
© Presto Plans
➡️ Want 10 free ELA resources sent to your inbox? Click here!