Feb. 27th- Today was our first day of class! The goal for our class is to write a true crime book proposal and then present our proposal to teachers posing as editors. We are lead by Mrs. Bogardus and guest teacher Harry N. MacLean, author of The New York Times Bestseller and Edgar Award Winner, In Broad Daylight. Mr. MacLean gave us the background on how he became an author and a description of the different types of books he has written. Then, we learned what differentiates a good true crime book from a great true crime book. Our goal for the week is to write a true crime book proposal and then present our proposal to teachers posing as editors. We broke into three groups and began research on different murders that we could write our book proposal about.
Feb. 28th- In our groups we finalized the murder case we want to write our proposal on and presented them to the class. We are continuing our research on our cases and looking for people we can interview. Mr. MacLean shared interviewing tips and personal stories of his own experiences interviewing people for his books.
March 1 - Today Officer Nick Felix came to class and discussed interrogating and questioning. He also talked about his experiences as an Officer and Investigator with the Sheffield Police Department.
March 2 - We spent the bulk of our class continuing our research, creating questions to ask of witnesses to the crimes, lawyers, police offers and other people we might be able to gather information from. Several students made successful contact with people involved in the cases. Many of us were afraid to make those initial calls, but once we made the first one we began to gain confidence.
March 3 - Our class submitted proposals of their True Crime books. Mrs. Mulder and Ms. Barrett acted as a publishing house that each group had to present their proposals to. Attached are the sample proposals. Congratulations to Anastasia Romanova, Patricie Petrilakova, Amaal Mahamed, and Dalia Banevicius who presented the winning book proposal: Crossing the Lines.