Close Reading Mystery Unit Years 5 and 6 | No Prep Reading Lessons | Emberwick

A no-prep close reading mystery for upper primary: thirteen ready-to-teach reading lessons for Years 5 and 6, plus an end-of-unit assessment. Open one file on your projector, press the right arrow and teach. No logins, no student devices, and it works offline.

Your students become junior investigators in Emberwick, a harbour town. On Friday the Harbour Board will take the Arden family's home because of one night in 1926, when the lighthouse went dark and the steamer Marigold was wrecked and robbed. Wren and Felix have found a box of old evidence. Every lesson opens one piece of it to read closely, and a clue only counts when the class can quote the words that prove it.

WHAT A LESSON LOOKS LIKE

You run every lesson from the computer on your projector or board. Your students write on paper, in their own printed Investigator's Casebook. Every lesson has a short voiced story, a case to crack, one reading skill, a model you reveal step by step, a whole-class activity, their own writing and an exit ticket. The class activity changes every lesson: a scan race, two chairs in role, a case conference, a lock room, a reopened inquiry.

Your notes are on every step. Press ? for what to say, questions to ask and the answers. A timer, hints and reveals are one key away.

REAL TEXTS TO READ CLOSELY

The evidence is a newspaper front page, a letter, a diary, three photographs, a ballad, an inquiry record, an unsigned letter, a poem, a keeper's log and a letter written thirty-two years later. Two real poems sit beside them: "The Inchcape Rock" (Robert Southey, 1802) and the opening of "The Lighthouse" (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1850). Every piece of evidence on screen has a "Hear it read" button, so weaker readers can listen first.

A CASE TO CRACK EVERY LESSON

Each lesson's case is opened only with evidence the class has read. Desks write their answer on paper before anyone touches the screen, so everyone has a go, not just the fastest hand. Each clue lights a place on the Night Map, five suspects are weighed card by card, and in Lesson 13 the class reopens the 1926 inquiry and presents its finding.

FOR THE STRUGGLERS, AND THE FAST FINISHERS

Every writing task has a word bank and a Fill the gaps frame, printed straight after its writing page in the Casebook. The sentence starters fade as the case goes on (first words only from Lesson 9, a planner in Lessons 12 and 13), so students are ready to write on their own for the assessment. There's a plainer "quick read" of the longest letter, and every Support box in the Lesson Guide names the hard words to pre-teach for EAL/D students. Fast finishers get a stretch task and a Second Lamp challenge every lesson.

FITS YOUR TIMETABLE

Every lesson is planned for about 60 minutes, and the Lesson Guide shows how to split one across two 45 or 50-minute periods.

COVERED WHEN YOU'RE AWAY

Every lesson in the Lesson Guide has a relief teacher's version: how to run it cold.

READY FOR REPORTS

The Open File is the end-of-unit assessment: an unseen 1931 case dossier, a reading check, a written case report, rubrics, a marking guide and four model reports (E, C, B and A).

THE LESSONS

1. The Box Marked "Not Yet" (skimming and scanning)
2. A Letter to Martha (reading between the lines)
3. The Red Diary (point of view)
4. Three Photographs (reading images)
5. The Ballad of the Dark Light (rhythm, rhyme and refrain)
6. The Inquiry Record (fact, opinion and bias)
7. The Case Conference (summarising and making a claim)
8. The Poem Behind the Clock (imagery and figurative language)
9. Side by Side (comparing texts)
10. Chalmers Lane (a text and its time)
11. The Letter Under the Floor (reading an unseen text)
12. Building the Case (sorting evidence and planning a finding)
13. The Inquiry Reopened (presenting a finding)

HOW IT RUNS

• One HTML file. Open it in Chrome or Edge and press F for full screen.
• Arrow keys, Space or a presentation clicker move you through the lesson.
• Works offline, needs no logins and stores nothing about your students. There's a one-page sheet for your IT team in the zip.
• Settings has a reading font, larger text, less movement and Australian or US spelling.
• Art, voices and music are all inside the file.

CURRICULUM

Written for the Australian Curriculum: English (v9) in Years 5 and 6. The Lesson Guide has a unit programme with the codes for each lesson.

WHAT'S INCLUDED

• The lessons: one offline HTML file for your projector or board (13 lessons)
• Investigator's Casebook (PDF, 52 pages): the case file (suspects, the Night Map, a clue log and a timeline), two pages a lesson with a Fill the gaps frame after each writing page, Second Lamp pages and a certificate (a lighter 35-page run leaves out the Fill the gaps and Second Lamp pages, for the students who don't need them)
• Evidence Pack (PDF, 18 pages): one sheet per piece of evidence, sealed until its lesson, plus the quick read and claim cards
• Teacher Lesson Guide (PDF, 62 pages): the whole case and every answer, a unit programme, a 60-minute plan for every lesson, teacher notes, support and extension, sample writing and a relief teacher's version of each lesson
• Casebook answers (PDF, 2 pages)
• The Open File (PDF, 18 pages): the end-of-unit assessment
• For Your IT Team (PDF, 1 page)
• START HERE quick guide

MORE FROM EMBERWICK

The Emberwick narrative writing editions and The Emberwick Gazette (news and opinion writing) are set in the same town and are in the Star Class Academy store. This unit is complete on its own.

HOW IT WAS MADE

The voices and the music were made with an AI voice and music tool, and the paintings and drawings with an AI image tool. We chose and edited all of it.

LICENCE

For use by the purchasing teacher with their own classes. You may put these files on a password-protected or school-internal site (such as your school's learning platform) for your own classes. Please don't post them on a public website or share them outside your classes.

Questions? Ask us in the Q&A on this page.

Made by two teachers, one primary and one secondary, who have taught in classrooms around the world.