2013 Beacon Award Winner
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Tim Greer
Detective Fiction High School Seniors (12th grade) Timothy S. Greer of the Memphis University School uses Sherlock Holmes and other detectives to strengthen students' cognitive abilities and foster critical thinking and writing skills. Lab exercises include the analysis of handwriting and forgery, bite marks, gunshot residue, and the use of dogs for tracking. |
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Tim Greer is an instructor in English and fine arts and director of theater at Memphis University School in Memphis, TN. Founded in 1893, MUS is a non-denominational and non-discriminatory college-preparatory day school for boys in grades 7-12.Mr. Greer teaches a senior course in Detective Fiction. His students read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (in the original illustrated Strand edition) as well as Edgar Allan Poe, John Dickson Carr, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and other well-known writers of the genre. Among his many objectives for the course are analyzing literary devices and concepts, fostering critical thinking and formal reasoning skills, examining recurring themes in detective fiction, examining the role of popular literature as a means of mass communication, and recognizing the cultural phenomenon of art imitating life and vice versa as the detective fiction genre mirrors the development of early modern criminology.
Laboratory exercises include the analysis of handwriting and forgery, bite marks, gunshot residue, and the use of dogs for tracking.
Laboratory exercises include the analysis of handwriting and forgery, bite marks, gunshot residue, and the use of dogs for tracking.
DETECTIVE FICTION
(Elizabeth Crosby, Chair of the MUS English Department contributed to this summary)
If you see a group of students scribbling on field notebooks and trailing a bloodhound across our school’s campus, then their teacher, Tim Greer, is not far behind. Greer does, in fact, offer his students an exemplary educational experience of Sherlock Holmes in the field as well as in the classroom.
Mr. Greer begins his Detective Fiction course for high-school seniors with a discussion of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and the “insatiable human desire to know.” During the course he asks the students to consider the idea that society needs Sherlock Holmes – the “dragon slayer” – to pursue the criminal who strikes in secret, that criminal who has violated Hobbes’ social contract. And for whom does the detective seek justice? According to Greer, a detective like Sherlock Holmes seeks justice for the victim but also, and more important, for society, for the sake of the “Queen’s peace.”
Among the many creative ways in which Mr. Greer engages his students in the genre of detective fiction is an E-FIT written report in which the students reflect on how drawing composite images of their own faces “sharpens their skills of observation and strengthen the ongoing practice of mindfulness.” In another exercise, Greer’s students analyze gunshot residue and compare their findings to Holmes’ in “The Reigate Squire.” And, of course, Greer partners his students with canines and sets up a tracking session which the students will compare and contrast with the abilities of the dogs used by Holmes and Watson.
How could Mr. Greer’s students not get caught up in the excitement of mystery and crime solving with such a creative and energetic teacher leading the hounds? In feedback at the end of the course, Greer’s students consistently report that Detective Fiction is one of the best courses they have taken in high school. As one student put it, “Sherlock Holmes 4ever!” Another student plans now to pursue a career as a criminologist. He told Greer that criminology combines his love for English and Science and that a criminologist “gets to do both – go into the field and collect evidence, retire to the lab and work on it, write reports on their findings, and testify in court.”
(Elizabeth Crosby, Chair of the MUS English Department contributed to this summary)
If you see a group of students scribbling on field notebooks and trailing a bloodhound across our school’s campus, then their teacher, Tim Greer, is not far behind. Greer does, in fact, offer his students an exemplary educational experience of Sherlock Holmes in the field as well as in the classroom.
Mr. Greer begins his Detective Fiction course for high-school seniors with a discussion of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and the “insatiable human desire to know.” During the course he asks the students to consider the idea that society needs Sherlock Holmes – the “dragon slayer” – to pursue the criminal who strikes in secret, that criminal who has violated Hobbes’ social contract. And for whom does the detective seek justice? According to Greer, a detective like Sherlock Holmes seeks justice for the victim but also, and more important, for society, for the sake of the “Queen’s peace.”
Among the many creative ways in which Mr. Greer engages his students in the genre of detective fiction is an E-FIT written report in which the students reflect on how drawing composite images of their own faces “sharpens their skills of observation and strengthen the ongoing practice of mindfulness.” In another exercise, Greer’s students analyze gunshot residue and compare their findings to Holmes’ in “The Reigate Squire.” And, of course, Greer partners his students with canines and sets up a tracking session which the students will compare and contrast with the abilities of the dogs used by Holmes and Watson.
How could Mr. Greer’s students not get caught up in the excitement of mystery and crime solving with such a creative and energetic teacher leading the hounds? In feedback at the end of the course, Greer’s students consistently report that Detective Fiction is one of the best courses they have taken in high school. As one student put it, “Sherlock Holmes 4ever!” Another student plans now to pursue a career as a criminologist. He told Greer that criminology combines his love for English and Science and that a criminologist “gets to do both – go into the field and collect evidence, retire to the lab and work on it, write reports on their findings, and testify in court.”
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DETECTIVE FIELDWORK
Students trying their hand at a bit of forgery – and forgery detection, using an indispensable piece of Sherlockian equipment: the microscope. |
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Students make bite impressions for later comparison with tooth marks in an apple taken in evidence (center). Working in groups, they carefully inspect the apple and the bite impressions to match a potential suspect's dental pattern.
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Mr. Greer demonstrates how blast patterns will be obtained from a blank-firing .45LC caliber Colt New Service, a ballistic cousin to the .455 caliber Webleys used by Sherlock Holmes in “The Reigate Squires” and Sam Spade in “The Maltese Falcon.”
Students calculate the conical pattern at various distances from the muzzle to see if the authors did their research for their stories. |
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In tracing the movements of a fugitive over territory familiar to him, geographical profilers review a lot of information.
They carefully scrutinize urban geography, flow patterns and perceived barriers, but they also take into account how people tend to move when under stress. Police dog handlers are familiar with these patterns and Holmes surely knew them as well, when he used canine helpers like Pompey in “The Missing Three-Quarter” and Toby in “The Sign of Four.” Students follow and document the activity a bloodhound and his handler from Search Dogs South as it tracks a "person of interest" from one building to another on the MUS campus. |