Westing Game

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2002 : July : 10

Westing Game
By Jan Moore

I taught The Westing Game this year with my 6th grade Pre-AP class. I had exactly as many students as "Westing heirs" in the book. The students drew names to find "their" character and took notes as we read on traits of their
character. They also wrote down the clues on slips of paper so they could rearrange them. (These were kept in an envelope which doubled as bookmark.) At the end of the book, each student drew a "Wanted for Murder" poster of their character and had to include as many physical and other traits that they had gleaned along the way. Before the "murderer" was revealed, I had them pretend

that they were the defense attorney for whoever they thought was the murderer. They had to write a closing argument to the "jury" (the class) and present it orally. The "jury" voted on who they thought was the murderer based on the summations. Several very good points were brought out during these. They enjoyed the book and the unit immensely.