Reading Objectives• Comprehension: Make inferences;

Make predictions• Tier Two Vocabulary: See book’s Glossary• Word study: Suffixes• Analyze the genre• Respond to and interpret texts• Make text-to-text connections• Fluency: Read with anticipation and mood

Writing Objectives• Writer’s tools: Simile• Write a mystery using writing process steps

Related Resources• Comprehension Question Card• Comprehension Power Tool Flip Chart• Using Genre Models to Teach Writing• Whose Song Is It, Anyway?, The Mixed-Up

Guitar Case (Level S/44)

The Missing Necklace

Stop, Thief!

Unit-at-a-Glance

Day 1 Prepare to Read

Day 2 Read “The Missing Necklace”*

Day 3 Read “Stop, Thief!”*

Day 4 Reread “Stop, Thief!”*

Day 5 Literature Circle Discussion/Reinforce Skills*

Days 6–15 Write a mystery using the process writing steps on page 10.

Level T/44

® B e n c h m a r k e d u c a t i o n c o m p a n y

Teacher’s Guide: MysTery

While you are meeting with small groups, other students can:• read independently from your classroom library• reflect on their learning in reading response

journals• engage in literacy workstations

™

• Ask students to turn to pages 5–7. Say: The mysteries in this book are solved by a teenager with the help of his younger sister. Let’s read about these characters and some other young detectives.

• Have a student read aloud the character sketches while others follow along.

• Say: Steve and Lizzie Baez are characters in mystery stories for young readers. All the young detectives described on pages 6 and 7 have been featured in books for many years. What can you infer, or tell, from this? Allow responses. Prompt students to understand that mysteries are extremely popular among young people.

Introduce the Tools for Readers and Writers: Simile• Read aloud Simile on page 4. • Say: Many writers use simile. This technique helps

them vividly describe characters and settings. The mysteries in this book have several examples of simile. Let’s practice identifying simile so we can notice it in the mysteries we read.

• Distribute BLM 1 (Simile). Read aloud sentence 1 with students.

• Model Identifying Simile: The first sentence describes Dan’s old shoes. It compares the way the shoes fit to the way gloves fit. The author uses the word as to make the comparison. The comparison creates a vivid image in the reader’s mind.

• Ask students to work with a partner or in small groups to identify the examples of simile in the remaining sentences. Have them complete two sentences using simile, and write their own simile.

• Bring the groups together to share their findings. Point out that although each simile uses the word like or as, these words do not always signal a simile in our reading and writing.

• Ask each group to read one of the sentences they completed. Use the examples to build their understanding of how and why writers use simile. Remind students that simile can help readers understand and make inferences about the characters, plot, and setting of a mystery.

• Ask groups to hand in their sentences. Transfer student-completed and student-written sentences to chart paper, title the page “Simile,” and post it as an anchor chart in your classroom.

two mysteries2

Prepare to ReadBuild Genre Background• Write the word genre on chart paper. Ask: Who

can explain what the word genre means? (Allow responses.) The word genre means “a kind of something.” Murals and sculpture are different kinds of art. Each has its own characteristics that we can use to identify the art style. In the same way, we can identify literary genres by their characteristics. As readers, we pay attention to the genre to help us comprehend. Recognizing the genre helps us anticipate what will happen or what we will learn. As writers, we use our knowledge of genre to help us develop and organize our ideas.

• Ask: Who can name some literary genres? Let’s make a list. Allow responses. Post the list on the classroom wall as an anchor chart.

• Draw a concept web on chart paper or the chalkboard. Write Mystery in the center circle of the web.

• Say: Mysteries are one example of a literary genre. Think of any mysteries you know. How would you define what a mystery is?

• Turn and Talk. Ask students to turn and talk to a classmate and jot down any features of a mystery they can think of. Then bring students together and ask them to share their ideas. Record them on the group web. Reinforce the concept that all mysteries have certain common features.

Introduce the Book• Distribute the book to each student. Read the title

aloud. Ask students to tell what they see on the cover and in the table of contents.

• Ask students to turn to pages 2–3. Say: This week we are going to read mysteries that will help us learn about this genre. First we’re going to focus on this genre as readers. Then we’re going to study mysteries from a writer’s perspective. Our goal this week is to really understand this genre.

• Ask a student to read aloud the text on pages 2–3 while others follow along. Invite a different student to read the web on page 3.

• Point to your mystery web on chart paper. Say: Let’s compare our initial ideas about mysteries with what we just read. What new features of this genre did you learn? Allow responses. Add new information to the class web.

• Post this chart in your classroom during your mystery unit. Say: As we read mysteries this week, we will come back to this anchor chart. We will look for how these features appear in each mystery we read.

©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLC. All rights reserved. teachers may photocopy the reproducible pages for classroom use. No other part of the guide may be reproduced or transmitted in whole or in part in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.isBN: 978-1-4509-2970-7

Day 1

3two mysteries©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLC

Reflect and Review • Turn and Talk. Write one or more of the following

questions on chart paper. What is a literary genre, and how can understanding

genres help readers and writers? What did you learn today about the mystery genre? How can readers recognize the technique of simile? Ask partners or small groups to discuss their ideas

and report them back to the whole group as a way to summarize the day’s learning.

Before ReadingIntroduce “The Missing Necklace”• Reread the mystery anchor chart or the web on

page 3 to review the features of a mystery.• Ask students to turn to page 8. Ask: Based on

the title and illustration, what do you predict this mystery might be about? Allow responses.

• Invite students to scan the text and look for the boldfaced words (failure, correlation, attendance, retirement, comical, motivations). Say: As you read, pay attention to these words. If you don’t know what they mean, try to use clues in the surrounding text to help you define them. We’ll come back to these words after we read.

Set a Purpose for Reading• Ask students to read the mystery, focusing on the

genre elements they noted on their anchor chart. They should also look for examples of simile and think about how the author’s use of simile helps them understand the setting, plot, and characters.

Read “The Missing Necklace”• Place students in groups based on their reading

levels. Ask students to read the mystery silently, whisper-read, or read with a partner.

• Confer briefly with individual students to monitor their understanding of the text and their use of fix-up strategies.

Management TipAsk students to place self-stick notes in the margins where they notice examples of simile or features of the genre.

After ReadingBuild Comprehension: Make Inferences• Lead a student discussion using the “Analyze

the Characters and Plot” and “Focus on Comprehension” questions on page 16. Then, use the following steps to provide explicit modeling of how to make inferences about a mystery.

• Explain: Authors can’t tell readers everything about the characters, setting, and plot in a story. Sometimes readers have to make inferences. An inference is based on one or two clues or

Management Tips• Throughout the week, you may wish to use

some of the reflect and review questions as prompts for reader response journal entries in addition to turn and talk activities.

• Have students create genre study folders. Keep blackline masters, notes, small-group writing, and checklists in the folders.

• Create anchor charts by writing whole-group discussion notes and mini-lessons on chart paper. Hang charts in the room where students can see them.

Day 2Days 6–15

©2011 Benchmark Education Company, LLCtwo mystEriEs BLm 1

Name _________________________________________________ Date __________________

SimileDirections: Read each sentence. Underline each example of simile. Circle the

comparison words.

1. Dan’s old shoes fit as tight as gloves.

2. The meteor streaked across the sky like a flash of lightning.

3. Alicia was as mad as a nest of hornets.

4. Kyle’s new bike shone like a new quarter.

5. The new teacher seemed as tall as a redwood tree.

Directions: Complete each simile below.

6. The dark forest was like ______________________________________

.

7. The soccer game was as exciting as __________________________

.

Directions: Write your own simile.

8. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

Possible answer: the setting of

Possible answer: a a horror movie

rocket launch

Similes will vary. Example: The sand was as fine as sugar.

G5Mystery2Necklace_TG.indd 1 8/13/10 1:51 AM

pieces of evidence. As readers, we pay attention to details authors give about each story element. Then we make inferences about these elements to add to what we already know.

• Distribute copies of BLM 2 or draw a chart like the one below.

• Model: When I analyze a mystery, I think about the story and look for clues from which I can make inferences. In “The Missing Necklace,” the security guard says he would like to move to a retirement community. From this detail, I can infer that the security guard is in his sixties or older. Making inferences helps me understand more about the story’s characters, setting, and plot.

• Guide Practice: Work with students to identify clues or evidence on which they can base inferences about the story elements in “The Missing Necklace.” Then, ask them to think about how the inferences help them understand more about the story’s characters, setting, or plot.

• Have students keep BLM 2 in their genre studies folder.

©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLCtwo mysteries4

in this question do you think will help me? (Allow responses.) Yes, I’m looking for the words Lizzie, want, and go. On page 9, I read, “Then Lizzie said, ‘I want to go to the museum.’” This sentence answers the question.

• Use the Flip Chart to develop other Find It! questions.

Focus on Vocabulary: Suffixes• Explain/Model. Read aloud Suffixes on page 4.

Say: Suffixes enable authors to use fewer words. For example, the authors of this mystery describe Lizzie’s “sugary breath.” The word sugary conveys meaning more effectively than the phrase “smelling like sugar.” Readers can often figure out an unfamiliar word by looking at its base word and suffix.

• Practice. Ask students to find some words with suffixes in the mystery. List the words. (For example: explanation, director, automatically, insurance)

• Say: Let’s find the boldfaced words in this mystery. What can you do if you don’t know what these words mean? (Allow responses.) Besides looking in the glossary or a dictionary, you can look for clues in the word itself. One strategy is to look for the meanings of the base word and suffix.

• Ask students to work with a partner to complete the “Focus on Words” activity on page 17 using BLM 3 (Focus on Suffixes). Explain that they should look at the meaning of each base word and suffix to find the meaning of the target word.

• Transfer Through Oral Language. Ask groups of students to share their findings. Then challenge individual students to add new suffixes to each base word to produce other words. Invite the other students to use the new words in oral sentences.

• Ask students to save their work in their genre studies folders to continue on Days 3 and 4.

Day 2 (cont.)

Practice Text Comprehension Strategies for ELA Assessment• Remind students that when they answer questions

on standardized assessments, they must be able to support their answers with facts or clues and evidence directly from the text.

• Use the Comprehension Question Card with small groups of students to practice answering text-dependent comprehension questions.

• Say: Today I will help you learn how to answer Find It! questions. The answer to a Find It! question is right in the book. You can find the answer in one place in the text.

• Model. Read the first Find It! question. Say: When I read the question, I look for important words that tell me what to look for in the book. What words

Clues or Evidence Inference

The Missing Necklace

Lizzie asks Steve why he is looking at a blank page.

Steve is having trouble thinking of an idea for a story he is writing.

Eleven people are in the room when the lights go out. The doors lock immediately when the alarm sounds.

One of these eleven people took the necklace.

Even though Steve has a good story for this week, he is concerned about next week’s story.

Steve tends to worry.

Page WordPart of Speech

Base Word

Suffix Definition

9 failure noun fail -ure act of failing or lack of success

9 correlation noun correlate -ion connection

11 attendance noun attend -ance presence

11 retirement adjective retire -ment relating to people who have stopped working permanently

13 comical adjective comic -al funny

13 motivations noun motivate -ion things that cause a person to act

5two mysteries©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLC

Before ReadingIntroduce “Stop, Thief!” • Ask students to turn to page 18. Say: Today we

are going to read “Stop, Thief!” This mystery is written in a different format from the other mystery we read. Notice how there are notes in the margins to you, the reader. The first time we read the text, we will read to understand the mystery, focusing on the characters, plot, and clues. Tomorrow, we will read this mystery like a writer and think about the notes in the margin as a model for how we can write our own mystery.

• Say: Let’s look at the title and illustrations of this mystery. What do you predict it might be about? Give students time to share their predictions.

• Ask students to scan the text and look for the boldfaced words (detective, attention, addition, suspicious, excitement, meticulously). Ask: What do you notice about these words? Why do you think they appear in boldfaced type? Allow responses. Encourage students to notice that these words have suffixes.

• Say: As you read, try to figure out the meanings of these words. Think about the definition of each base word and suffix. After we read, we will talk about how you used your knowledge of base words and suffixes to figure out the meanings.

Set a Purpose for Reading• Ask students to read the mystery, focusing on

how the characters, setting, and plot illustrate the solution of a crime. Encourage them to notice the author’s use of simile.

Read “Stop, Thief!”• Place students in groups based on their reading

levels. Ask students to read the mystery silently, whisper-read, or read with a partner.

• Confer briefly with individual students to monitor their understanding of the text and their use of fix-up strategies.

After ReadingBuild Comprehension: Make Inferences• Say: Yesterday we made inferences about “The

Missing Necklace.” We used clues in the text to figure out things the author did not directly state. For example, we inferred that the security guard might be in his sixties or older since he mentioned moving to a retirement community. What can we infer about the plot or characters in “Stop, Thief!”? Allow responses. As students share their analyses, synthesize their responses into a whole-group chart like the one here.

Note Regarding This Teacher’s GuideEach book provides an opportunity for students to focus on an additional comprehension strategy that is typically assessed on state standards. The strategy is introduced on page 4 (the third item in the “Tools for Readers and Writers” section) with text-specific follow-up questions found on the Reread pages. Some Reread sections also introduce an advanced language arts concept or comprehension strategy, such as protagonist/antagonist, perspective, or subtitles, because students at this level should be able to consider more than one comprehension strategy per text.

Reflect and Review • Turn and Talk. Ask partners or small groups to

reread the “Features of a Mystery” web on page 3 and decide whether all of these features are present in “The Missing Necklace.” Ask groups to share and support their findings.

Fluency: Read with Anticipation and Mood• You may wish to have students reread the story with

a partner during independent reading time, focusing on anticipating the mood of the story and reading with appropriate tone and expression. Ask students to read page 12, using their voices to express the suspense and excitement of the events. Remind them that they can use pitch, pacing, volume, and emphasis of specific words to create the appropriate mood.

Day 3

©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLCtwo mysteries6

• Guide Practice. Use the Flip Chart to help you develop other Look Closer! questions.

Focus on Vocabulary: Suffixes• Ask students to work with a partner to complete the

“Focus on Words” activity on page 29 using BLM 3, which they started on Day 2. Have groups of students share their findings.

• Transfer Through Oral Language. Invite pairs of students to make up a short oral story using each target word. Invite each pair to tell their story to the class. Ask other students to determine if each word is used correctly.

• Discuss Making Inferences Across Texts. Lead a discussion using the following questions. How did making inferences help you better understand the characters in “The Missing Necklace” and “Stop, Thief!”? How did making inferences help you better understand the plots of the two stories?

How does making inferences help you better understand and appreciate a mystery?

Where has the author used simile? How do these examples of simile help you better appreciate the characters and plot?

Day 3 (cont.)

Clues or Evidence Inference

Stop, Thief!

The woman at the mailbox is emphatic about not needing help with her letters and packages.

The woman is hiding something.

Lizzie points out that the robbery would make a good story for Steve.

Lizzie wants to help her brother.

Steve is not happy about getting newspaper publicity for solving the mystery.

Steve is not solving mysteries in order to become famous.

Practice Text Comprehension Strategies for ELA Assessment• Use the Comprehension Question Card with small

groups of students to practice answering text-dependent questions.

• Say: Today I will help you learn how to answer Look Closer! questions. The answer to a Look Closer! question is in the book. You have to look in more than one place, to find the different parts of the answer. Then you put the parts together to answer the question.

• Model. Read the second Look Closer! question. Say: I will show you how I answer a Look Closer! question. This question asks me to compare and contrast. I know because it has the clue word same. Now I need to look for other important information to find in the book. What information do you think will help me? (Allow responses.) Yes, I’m looking for descriptions of the joggers. On page 20, I read that each jogger wore powder-blue running pants and a warm-up jacket. On page 22, I read that each had on a white T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Sun City Fun Run.” I have found the answer in the book. I looked in several sentences to find the answer.

Page WordPart of Speech

Base Word

Suffix Definition

19 detective noun detect -ive one who uses clues to solve problems or crimes

20 attention noun attend -ion observation

21 addition noun add -ition the result of adding

23 suspicious adjective suspect -ious causing doubt, questionable

24 excitement noun excite -ment energized activity

26 meticulously adverb meticulous -ly very carefully

Reflect and Review • Turn and Talk. Ask partners or small groups to

discuss the following questions and report their ideas to the whole group. Do you think that the main character’s use of the story’s clues to solve the mystery is realistic? Why or why not? Think of a time in your life when you figured out the answer to a mystery or puzzling event. How did you solve it?

Fluency: Read Anticipation and Mood• You may wish to have students reread the story with

a partner during independent reading time, focusing on reading with expression to fit the mood of the story. Ask students to use the pictures and clues in the events and character descriptions to identify the mood of the story on pages 20–21. Then have them choose one or two paragraphs to read aloud, using an appropriate tone to express the mood of urgency and excitement. Remind them that they can use pacing, volume, and pitch to help portray the mood.

©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLC two mysteries 7

Before ReadingSet a Purpose for Rereading• Have students turn to page 18. Say: Until now,

we have been thinking about mysteries from the perspective of the reader. Learning the features of mysteries has helped us be critical readers. Now we are going to put on a different hat. We are going to reread “Stop, Thief!” and think like writers. We’re going to pay attention to the annotations in the margins. These annotations will help us understand what the authors did and why they did it.

Reread “Stop, Thief!”• Place students in groups based on their reading

levels. Ask students to read the mystery silently or whisper-read.

• Confer briefly with individual students to monitor their understanding of the text and annotations.

After ReadingAnalyze the Mentor Text• Explain to students that the text they have just read

is a mentor text. A mentor text is a text that teaches. This text is designed to help them understand what writers do to write a mystery and why they do it.

• Read and discuss each mentor annotation with students. Encourage them to comment on the writer’s style, setting, characters, suspense, dialogue, plot, and use of literary techniques such as simile.

Practice Text Comprehension Strategies for ELA Assessment • Use the Comprehension Question Card with small

groups of students to practice answering text-dependent questions.

• Say: Today I will help you learn how to answer Prove It! questions. The answer to a Prove It! question is not stated in the book. You have to look for clues and evidence to prove the answer.

• Model. Read the first Prove It! question. Say: I will show you how I answer a Prove It! question. This question asks me to analyze characters. I know because it asks me to use clues to show how a character feels. Now I need to look for other important information in the question. What information do you think will help me? (Allow responses.) Yes, I need to find out what Lizzie says or does on page 24 that shows her attitude toward her brother. I read that Lizzie says, “You’ll think of something.” I have located the clue I need to show that Lizzie has confidence in Steve.

• Guide Practice. Use the Flip Chart to help you develop other Prove It! questions and support students’ text-dependent comprehension strategies.

Analyze the Writer’s Craft• Ask students to turn to page 30. Explain: In the

next few days, you will have the opportunity to write your own mystery. First, let’s think about how the authors wrote “Stop, Thief!” When they developed this mystery, they followed certain steps. You can follow these same steps to write your own mystery.

• Read steps 1 and 2. Say: The first thing you’ll do is decide on the detective you want to create and the characters he or she will interact with. In “Stop, Thief!” the detective was Steve, a teenage boy. His younger sister Lizzie assisted him. Other characters included some joggers, the woman at the mailbox, the gardener, bank employees, and police officers. What do we want our detective to be like? What other characters will be involved in the story? Allow responses. Write down students’ ideas on chart paper.

• Read step 3. Say: Before you’re ready to write, you need a setting and plot. “Stop, Thief!” mostly takes place in a part of town with many businesses. Since the mystery is based on a bank robbery, this is a perfect setting for the plot. As you plan your story, think about the right setting for your mystery and its solution. Then think about the plot, or actions, that will help you develop the mystery. What will our setting and plot be? Allow responses. Write down students’ ideas on chart paper.

• Read steps 4 and 5. Say: In the stories we read, the author planted clues for solving the mystery. The author also showed how the detective used certain skills to figure out the clues. For example, one clue in “Stop, Thief!” is the envelope in which the thief put the stolen money. Steve uses his analytic skills to figure out that the envelope was later mixed with the woman’s mail. What clues can lead to solving our mystery? What skills will our detective use to figure out the clues? Choose a detective, other characters, a mystery to be solved, a setting, plot, clues, and skills that the class has brainstormed and work as a group to construct a possible mystery.

Build Comprehension: Make Predictions• Explain: When we read a story, we make

predictions about what will happen. Before reading, we base our predictions on the story’s title and illustrations. During reading, we make predictions based on what we have learned about the characters and what has happened so far. In “The Missing Necklace,” Steve and Lizzie decide to watch a movie about the jewelry exhibit. We can predict that something will happen when the lights go out—someone will

Day 4

Analyze & SynthesizePractice Text Comprehension Strategies for ELA Assessment • Use the Comprehension Question Card with small

groups of students to practice answering text-dependent questions.

• Say: Today I will help you learn how to answer Take It Apart! questions. To figure out the answer to a Take It Apart! question, you must think like the author.

• Model. Read the first Take It Apart! question. Say: This question asks me to think about the text structure. Now I need to look for other important information in the question. What information do you think will help me? (Allow responses.) Yes, I need to look on page 21 for the description of the jogger knocking into the woman at the mailbox. The authors tell the events of this scene in order. The text structure is a sequence of events. Thinking about the text structure helped me find the answer.

• Use the Flip Chart to help you develop other Take It Apart! questions.

Summarize & Make Connections Across Texts• Engage students in a discussion about the two

mysteries in this book. Invite a different student to summarize each mystery. Encourage other students to add their ideas and details.

• Ask students to turn to the inside back cover of the book. Say: Good readers think about how literary works are related. We know, for example, that both of these mysteries share certain features. They both have a crime to solve. They both have a detective who uses analytic skills to figure out who the criminal is. What else do they have in common? (Allow responses.) Today we will compare and contrast the elements in both mysteries.

• Ask students to work individually or in small groups to complete BLM 4 (Make Connections Across Texts).

• Class Discussion or Literature Circles. Facilitate a whole-class discussion or keep students in their small groups for a literature circle discussion. If you choose to conduct literature circles, share the rules for good discussion below. Each group should discuss and share their ideas about the following prompts. How were the stories’ crimes alike and different? Which clues did you find most useful? Which red herrings did you find most misleading? Which mystery did you find most entertaining? Why?

• Tell students that at the end of their discussion, you will ask them to share the text-to-text, text-to-world, and text-to-self connections they have made.

• While each small group of students discusses the book, confer with individual or small groups of students. You may wish to revisit elements of the genre, take running records, or model fluency.

probably steal the necklace. As we read on, we check our prediction. If the prediction is incorrect, we can revise our ideas based on what happens next. Making predictions keeps readers engaged and helps them enjoy and remember the plot of a story.

• Model: In “Stop, Thief!” Steve goes to the bank to ask questions about the robbery. The answers help him figure out how many bills the thief took. From these details, we can predict that Steve will solve the mystery of the bank robbery. Making this prediction helps us focus on the clues the author planted and better understand how they impact the conclusion.

• Guide Practice. Invite students to work in small groups to discuss predictions they made while reading the two mysteries, including the clues on which they based their predictions. Then, ask each group to share how making predictions helped them better understand and enjoy the story.

Reflect and Review • Ask and discuss the following questions.

How is thinking about a mystery as a reader different from thinking about it as a writer? How is it similar? What new words have you added to your vocabulary this week? Which is your favorite? Which plot do you find most interesting? Why? How can you use suffixes and simile as a writer?

Fluency: Read with Anticipation and Mood• You may wish to have students reread the story with

a partner during independent reading time, focusing on expression. Ask students to identify the mood of pages 25–26 from clues in the events, characters’ words, and illustrations. Then have them practice reading with an appropriate tone to express the mood, using pacing, pitch, and volume to portray Steve’s thoughts and feelings.

©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLCtwo mysteries8

Day 4 (cont.) Day 5

Reread for Fluency: Oral Reading Performance• Discuss the suspense generated in the mysteries

and how it builds until the detective pulls all the clues together to solve the mystery. For example, in “Stop, Thief!” the suspense begins when the police officers order the joggers to stop and increases until Steve successfully cracks the case.

• Say: When you read the mysteries aloud, you can dramatize the suspense through your expression by using tone, pitch, pacing, and volume. This helps your listeners appreciate the mood and better understand the story as they anticipate the solution to the mystery.

• Invite individual students to read a section of one of the mysteries with expression that helps listeners enjoy the story’s suspense.

• Encourage students to have fun with their readings and to make them as dramatic as possible.

• As a whole class, discuss each reader’s interpretation. Think about alternative ways to dramatize the suspense.

Review Writer’s Tools: Simile• Ask students to look for other examples of

simile in titles from your classroom library or the school’s library. Each student should select one title at his or her independent reading level. Ask students to read pages specifically to find an example of simile.

• Invite students to share their examples with the class. Encourage students to discuss how the similes help them better visualize characters and settings. Point out that not all students will have found examples in the books they chose. Simile is not a tool all writers use all of the time.

9two mysteries©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLC

The Missing Necklace Stop, Thief!

Main character(s)

Steve and Lizzie Baez, young woman in a long coat

Steve and Lizzie Baez, robber, woman at mailbox

Setting a museum a street in town

Crime/Puzzling event

A necklace is stolen from a museum exhibit.

$2,000 is stolen from a bank.

“Red herring” The security guard says he would like to own the necklace. The history teacher could be planning an insurance scam.

The woman acted mad that someone bumped into her.

Solution The woman who says her necklace is a cheap souvenir is actually wearing the stolen necklace.

A runner planned the robbery with his girlfriend. He handed her the money when he bumped into her.

Ending Steve solves the mystery and wonders what he will write for the school newspaper next week.

Steve solves the mystery, and Lizzie wonders what he will write in the school paper next week.

Rules for Good Discussion• Pay attention to the person who is talking and do

not interrupt him or her.• Think about what others are saying so you can

respond and add to their ideas.• Encourage everyone in the group to speak.• Be respectful of everyone’s ideas.

Reinforce SkillsIf time permits, choose from the following activities to reinforce vocabulary and fluency.

Reinforce Vocabulary: Suffix Trade• Place students in small groups, sitting in a circle.• Write the suffixes -al, -ance, -ive, -ly, -ment, -ness,

-ous, -ion, and -ure on the board. • Have students take turns choosing a glossary word

and trying to make a new word by combining the base word with a different suffix, such as attentive (attendance), and using it in a sentence. The person on the student’s right should tell whether the word is a real word and identify its part of speech. That student can choose the next word and add a new suffix to it. Continue until all students have had an opportunity to create a new word.

Day 5 (cont.)

Write a Mystery• Use the suggested daily schedule to guide students

through the steps of the writing process. Allow approximately 45 to 60 minutes per day. As students work independently, circulate around the room and monitor student progress. Confer with individual students to discuss their ideas and help them move forward. Use the explicit mini-lessons, conferencing strategies, and assessment rubrics in Using Genre Models to Teach Writing for additional support.

• Before students begin planning their mystery, pass out copies of BLM 5 (Mystery Checklist). Review the characteristics and conventions of writing that will be assessed. Tell students that they will use this checklist when they complete their drafts.

• This daily plan incorporates the generally accepted six traits of writing as they pertain to mysteries.

Days 6–7: Plan • Ask students to use BLM 6 (Mystery Planning Guide)

to brainstorm the characters, setting, and plot for their mysteries.

• Encourage students to refer to the “Features of a Mystery” web on page 3 and to the steps in “The Writer’s Craft” on pages 30–31 of the book.

• Confer with individual students and focus on their ideas. Did students begin their stories with a mystery to be solved? What skills does the detective use? What clues does the detective uncover?

Days 8–9: Draft • Tell students that they will be using their completed

Mystery Planning Guides to draft their mystery. • Say: Remember that when writers draft their ideas,

they focus on getting their ideas on paper. They can cross things out. They can make mistakes in spelling. What’s important is to focus on developing your characters, setting, and plot. You will have an opportunity to make changes later.

• Confer with students as they complete their drafts. Use the Mystery Checklist to draw students’ attention to characteristics of the mystery genre that they may have overlooked. Focus on how students have organized their ideas and the voice of the writer. Did students introduce a detective at the beginning of the story? Did they set up a mystery and then show its solution? Do they build suspense? Does the mystery have a strong voice? Will the voice keep readers interested?

• Pair students for peer conferencing.

Days 10–11: Edit and Revise • Based on your observations of students’ writing,

select appropriate mini-lessons from Using Genre Models to Teach Writing.

• Remind students to use the Mystery Checklist as they edit and revise their mysteries independently.

Days 6–15• Confer with students focusing on sentence fluency,

word choice, and conventions. Did students include both long and short sentences? Do the sentences read smoothly? Have students used interesting words and phrases? Did they use examples of simile? Did they use appropriate spelling, punctuation, and grammar?

• You may want students to continue their editing and revision at home.

Days 12–13: Create Final Draft and Illustrations • Ask students to rewrite a final draft of their mysteries.• Invite students to illustrate their final drafts with one

or more drawings that depict specific characters or events in their mysteries.

• Confer with students about their publishing plans and deadlines.

Days 14–15: Publish and Share• Explain: Authors work long and hard to develop

their works. You have worked very hard. And one of the great joys of writing is when you can share it with others. Authors do this in many ways. They publish their books so that people can buy them. They make their work available on the Internet. They hold readings. We can share our writing, too.

• Use one or more of the ideas below for sharing students’ work: Make a class display of students’ completed mysteries. Hold a class reading in which students can read their mysteries to one another and/or to parents. Create a binder of all the mysteries and loan it to the library so that other students can read them.

Create a binder of all the mysteries for your classroom library.

two mysteries ©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLC10

Days 6–15

two mysteries ©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLCBLm 5

Name _________________________________________________ Date _________________

Mystery ChecklistTitle ________________________________________________________________________ ______

Features of the Genre Checklist Yes No

1. My mystery has a strong lead. 2. My mystery is told in first or third person. 3. My mystery revolves around solving a crime. 4. I included a detective character to solve the crime. 5. The detective uses analytic skills to solve the crime. 6. I included a feeling of suspense throughout my mystery. 7. I tell the problem at the beginning of the mystery. 8. I have 3 to 5 main events in my mystery. 9. My mystery has a solution to the problem. 10. I use figurative language in my mystery. 11. I revealed the culprit of the crime at the end of

my mystery.

Quality Writing Checklist Yes No

I looked for and corrected . . .

• run-on sentences • sentence fragments • subject/verb agreement • verb tense • punctuation • capitalization • spelling • indented paragraphs

G5Mystery2Necklace_TG.indd 5 8/13/10 1:50 AM

TWO MYSTERIES ©2011 Benchmark Education Company, LLCBLM 6

4. Brainstorm clues.

5. Brainstorm detective skills.

Mystery Planning Guide

Name _________________________________________________ Date ____________________

Directions: Use the steps below to plan your own mystery.

1. Decide on a detective.

2. Brainstorm other characters.

3. Brainstorm setting and plot.

SettingProblemEventsSolution

Characters Description, Traits

Suspect? Yes or No

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Days 6–15

©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLCtwo mysteries BLm 1

Name _________________________________________________ Date __________________

SimileDirections: Read each sentence. Underline each example of simile. Circle the

comparison words.

1. Dan’s old shoes fit as tight as gloves.

2. The meteor streaked across the sky like a flash of lightning.

3. Alicia was as mad as a nest of hornets.

4. Kyle’s new bike shone like a new quarter.

5. The new teacher seemed as tall as a redwood tree.

Directions: Complete each simile below.

6. The dark forest was like ______________________________________

.

7. The soccer game was as exciting as __________________________

.

Directions: Write your own simile.

8. ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

two mysteries ©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLC

Make Inferences

Name _________________________________________________ Date ____________________

Directions: Use the chart below to make inferences about each mystery.

BLm 2

Clues or Evidence Inference

The Missing Necklace

Stop, Thief!

Name _________________________________________________ Date ___________________

Focus on SuffixesDirections: Identify each word’s part of speech, base word, suffix, and definition.

Explain how the meaning of the suffix changes the meaning of the base word.

©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLCtwo mysteries BLm 3

Page Word Part of Speech

Base Word Suffix Definition

9 failure

9 correlation

11 attendance

11 retirement

13 comical

13 motivations

19 detective

20 attention

21 addition

23 suspicious

24 excitement

26 meticulously

Make Connections Across Texts

Name _________________________________________________ Date ___________________

Directions: Fill in the chart. Use it to compare and contrast the two mysteries.

two mysteries ©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLCBLm 4

The Missing Necklace Stop, Thief!

Main character(s)

Setting

Crime/Puzzling event

“Red herring”

Solution

Ending

two mysteries ©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLCBLm 5

Name _________________________________________________ Date _________________

Mystery ChecklistTitle ________________________________________________________________________ ______

Features of the Genre Checklist Yes No

1. My mystery has a strong lead. 2. My mystery is told in first or third person. 3. My mystery revolves around solving a crime. 4. I included a detective character to solve the crime. 5. The detective uses analytic skills to solve the crime. 6. I included a feeling of suspense throughout my mystery. 7. I tell the problem at the beginning of the mystery. 8. I have 3 to 5 main events in my mystery. 9. My mystery has a solution to the problem. 10. I use figurative language in my mystery. 11. I revealed the culprit of the crime at the end of

my mystery.

Quality Writing Checklist Yes No

I looked for and corrected . . .

• run-on sentences • sentence fragments • subject/verb agreement • verb tense • punctuation • capitalization • spelling • indented paragraphs

two mysteries ©2011 Benchmark education Company, LLCBLm 6

4. Brainstorm clues.

5. Brainstorm detective skills.

Mystery Planning Guide

Name _________________________________________________ Date ____________________

Directions: Use the steps below to plan your own mystery.

1. Decide on a detective.

2. Brainstorm other characters.

3. Brainstorm setting and plot.

SettingProblemEventsSolution

Characters Description, Traits

Suspect? Yes or No