True Crime Essay Pack for Middle School ELA | The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist

This middle school research paper will grab your students' attention with a fascinating and age-appropriate true-crime writing prompt!

The Prompt:

Over thirty years ago, two men posing as police officers stole thirteen pieces of art worth hundreds of millions of dollars from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.

The thieves were never caught.

The art was never recovered.

To this day, the museum is offering a reward of $10 million to anyone who can give them information that will help the FBI solve the mystery. That reward-winner could be YOU.

Your task?

Determine who stole the artwork from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and prove that they did it with researched evidence from credible sources.

There's only one question left: what will you do with 10 million dollars?

This resource will help your students . . . 

✅ Develop a thesis statement

✅ Write logical topic sentences

✅ Support their claims

✅ Find credible sources

✅ Build a logically organized research paper (5-8 paragraphs)

✅ Self-assess their writing

✅ And more!

Rather than starting with an intro and rambling their way through to the conclusion, your students will start with the most important building block of their research paper: the thesis statement.

From there, they will build their topic sentences and move on to the support/evidence.

Finally, they will finish with an introduction and conclusion that complement the content of their research paper.

‼️Does your district use different terminology?‼️

Not a problem! This pdf includes a link to a ✨FULLY EDITABLE✨ version of the resource in Canva!

Individual rubrics are included for each step of the process so your students can check their work as they go and YOU can grade their papers AS they're being written!

What's included in this resource?

✅ Teacher tips to guide you through the process

✅ A student handout with an intriguing true-crime writing prompt

✅ 13 Fillable student handouts with graphic organizers that build a 5-8-paragraph research paper when put together

✅ Rubrics for each section of the paper (for student self-assessment and teacher grading)

✅ A put-it-all-together handout that shows students how to organize their papers

✅ An evidence tip sheet to help students get started with their research

✅ An example paper for students to reference as they write

✅ A link to a fully editable version to meet your students' specific needs