By Angela Howard

A golden turkey went missing from Old MacDonald's farm at Westwind Elementary. All signs lead to students believing the turkey was stolen, but by who? The Reavis Detective Agency, Mrs. Reavis’ English as a Second Language classes, jumped on the case and started looking for clues to bring the golden turkey back to the farm.

It was a difficult case as there were many suspects, including several familiar fairy tale characters. However, the student detectives put all of their reading skills to work and read and decoded text passages and highlighted keywords that provided clues to the location of the turkey. They analyzed nouns, verbs, adjectives, and other parts of speech and worked through cause and effect situations. They studied each character and learned their character traits that led students to a variety of hidden clues. Each uncovered clue was used to try to eliminate a suspect or prove them guilty. 

All along the way, students predicted who they thought the main suspect was. After much time and deliberation, the wise detectives in Mrs. Reavis’ ESL classes were able to reach a conclusion and solve the mystery. It was Rumpelstiltskin who stole the golden turkey from Old MacDonald's farm! 

The activity was designed to motivate students in an exciting way to want to read and learn different reading techniques. Mrs. Reavis said students came to her class every day begging to read more passages and uncover more clues. Her students learned to use deductive reasoning skills to uncover clues and make conclusive decisions based on the information collected. Student's academic vocabulary also advanced during their hunt for the golden turkey. 

Detective Giovanni, a student in Mrs. Reavis's class, was the first to figure out who the suspect was. He discovered the suspect was greedy and wanted to be powerful, which pointed to Rumplestiltskin. Students said they loved being detectives because they loved reading to find new clues and solve the mystery.