What is mystery text?

Mystery stories are a great way to get children interested in fiction: in a good mystery story, suspense is built up throughout the text, making the reader want to keep on reading. Mystery stories are also a good platform for discussing characters’ behaviour and motives with children.

Children will carry out activities related to the story: they may be asked to write a letter from one character to another or they may do some drama related to the story.

Eventually, children will start to think about writing their own mystery story. They will look again at the structure of a mystery story. For example: the original story may start with a murder and three suspects. The next part of the story might involve a detective interviewing the suspects and then finding a clue that leads him to discover who the murderer is. The teacher will encourage their class to use a similar structure to plan their own story. Usually they will be given a writing frame with prompts to remind them how to structure their story.

Children will then start to draft their story, remembering to include good description and dialogue. The teacher will spend time showing them how to do this effectively. They will work on editing their initial drafts and re-writing them. Finally, they will write their stories up in neat. Teachers usually try to find attractive ways of presenting finished stories, such as making booklets for the children to write in, or carrying out an art lesson where children can paint pictures to go with their stories. These activities help children to value what they are doing and encourage them to work hard to produce a really engaging finished product.