The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

Overview: Sherlock Holmes, the famous fictional detective solves seemingly unsolvable cases using his trademark reasoning and cold logic.

Number of classes: 3 Storytelling + Any 3 activities (One per story)

Resource material: “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (XXXXXX)

Refer to Project Gutenberg.

Story summary: 

1. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

After a street brawl, a man leaves behind his hat and a dead goose. The police find the Countess of Morcar’s Blue Carbuncle in the bird’s crop. Holmes uses the hat to find the man who had bought the bird, but soon realises that the man has no knowledge of the robbery. Upon following the trail, Holmes finds that the actual robber is a petty thief. Holmes lets the thief go in a gesture of Christmas goodwill.

2. The Adventure of the Speckled Band

Helen Stoner’s twin sister Julia is killed a few days before her wedding. Her dying words were “It was the speckled band”. Holmes discovers that upon her marriage Julia would have received an annuity from her late mother’s wealth, and that the girls’ stepfather Dr Roylott was deeply in debt and did not wish to lose the money. Holmes finds that Dr Roylott had trained a swamp adder to enter the room and kill Julia.

3. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet

Alexander Holder, a banker, loans £50,000 to a client and receives the Beryl Coronet, a valuable piece of jewellery, as collateral. One night he finds his son Arthur twisting the coronet and three beryls missing. Mr Holder turns to Holmes to protect his family from a major scandal. Holmes finds that Mr Holder’s niece is in cahoots with the thief, Sir George Burnwell, and that Arthur was trying to protect the girl.

Preparation for the class: Read the story beforehand. Focus on the sections that showcase Sherlock Holmes’ deductive skills. Elaborate on these parts when you tell the story. Read up on the life in England during the later part of the 18th century.

Class description: Bring an object from home – something that has ideally been in use for some time. Pass the object around the class. Ask the students to make observations and draw conclusions about the person who uses the object. Guide them through it by pointing to where the object has worn out, unusual stain marks, engravings etc. This will set the mood for a detective story and can be used for nearly every Sherlock Holmes story. Use this activity as a starting off point.

Tell your students the story up to the point where Sherlock Holmes identifies the criminal. Stop and ask your students to guess how he deduced who committed the crime. You can then finish the story.

Plan your classes in such a way that each storytelling class, you complete a story. The subsequent class could be used to conduct an activity.

Related activities

1. 'Ransom note' (Writing/Craft, During reading, Individual)*

Every criminal needs to be able to send ransom notes without detectives tracing them easily. Get your students to prepare ransom notes. Ask them to bring old magazines or newspapers to the class. Tell them to make a letter to a friend by cutting out words from magazines and newspapers and sticking them all together to form sentences. Remind them that the more magazines they use to create their letter, the tougher it will be for the police to track them. Pass the ransom notes around so the class can see each other’s work. [Worksheet]

2. 'Furry Accomplice (Writing, After reading, Individual)*

Using an animal to commit crimes is a plot device used in many stories. Ask your students to plan a bank heist using an animal accomplice. In their worksheet, they must include the kind of animal they would use, how that animal would be involved in the heist, and what the animal would gain from the heist. For instance, they could use a talking parrot as a decoy, or a monkey to sneak into the vault when nobody is looking.

Students could devise other uses for their animal accomplices too. For instance, fire-fighters could use elephants as portable hoses to put out small fires. At the end, students read our their ideas to the class. [Worksheet]

Note: You could ask the students if they have seen the movie “Dunston Checks In” and talk about the monkey, Dunston, who is used by a jewel thief to steal jewels from rich ladies in a swank hotel.)

3. 'A modern-day detective (Art, After reading, Individual)*

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote this series in the late 19th century. What would Sherlock Holmes look like today? What would his toolkit be like? Would he have a utility belt like Batman? Ask your students to draw what they imagine a modern detective would look like. They could give him imaginary tools with specific functions that a detective would find useful. The drawings could be passed around at the end of the class. [Worksheet]

4. 'I am a detective too (Creative, During reading, Whole class)

It is said that Doyle was inspired to create Sherlock Holmes by watching his superior, Dr Joseph Bell, diagnose patients. We have all had instances in our lives where we drew some larger conclusions from certain small observations. Ask your students to recollect such incidents from their own experiences or from those of people they know, and narrate it to the class. Get the class to discuss each student’s experiences and conclude by sharing some of your own experiences.

Recommended reading

“The Hound of Baskerville” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Pigeon Portfolio

“And then there were none ” by Agatha Christie, HarperCollins

“The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” by Alexander McCall Smith, Hachette

Use your little grey cells, try out the Activities ..