Wrongful Convictions

Procedure:

After pre-teaching the vocabulary specific to this podcast, explain to your students that we will do a short activity to predict the timeline in this murder case. The chronology of this case stretches over the past 24 years and is particularly important to understanding the larger theme of justice.

Tell students that-

“Here I have 7 cutout slips of paper that correspond to events, that when put into the correct order, tell the story of Curtis Flowers- a man convicted of murder. You will have 4 minutes to talk and organize your slips into chronological order based on how you predict or think that they occurred. 

-For this activity we will be getting into groups of 3. I will give each of you a number after this brief introduction for you all to pair up with your respective partners.”

• Say, “alright everybody how many per group… (wait for class response)”. Count out the numbers for groups (1-3)

• After everyone gets into their groups say, “Alright guys, so were going to organize the slips into… (wait for response- ‘chronological order’)

Procedure:

1). Play the following 4 minutes 36 seconds of this podcast. The last words are “They’d all been shot in the head.”  

https://www.apmreports.org/story/2018/05/01/in-the-dark-s2e1

2). Students should be checking to make sure that the timeline cards are in the correct order as they listen to the podcast.

Procedure:

1). Now that the podcast clip is over, ask the students to, “make sure that each of your events follows the example that’s on the board. If they were not, hold on to the reasons why you think that your first inclinations may have been wrong, and bring them up to your groups during your discussion at the end.”

2). After putting away the podcast and gathering everybody’s attention, say, “alright class, how did we do? Now that you guys are familiar with the chronological order of events, and followed along with the narrative, I am going to pass out a reflection guide that poses some thoughtful discussion questions that you will first answer on your own." 

-Check for backchanneling and listening cues and then continue saying “The questions are meant to be thought provoking but for the purpose of the exercise please rate your level of agreement on a scale of one to three. Better said, if you agree with the statement, you will circle the number 1, if you are neutral circle 2, and if you disagree circle 3. You will be provided 3 minutes to complete the worksheet, and then we will move into group discussion.”

3). Then introduce the post listening activity by saying, “Now that everybody has completed the individual worksheet, please use the remaining minutes to discuss in your groups any questions you found compelling, any intriguing parts of the Curtis Flowers story, or any personal opinions or anecdotes you feel might give insight into the controversial nature of the podcast and case. In addition, please compare your answers on the worksheet, and discuss why they are the same or different. If you have any questions I am available, and please feel free to ask the opinions of your group to further your guys’ discussion.”

Caveats: Putting the time cards in order is very intuitive. First the events surrounding the crime, then the trial of Curtis Flowers, and then the repeated trials. However, the podcast itself covers some of the later events first, and then reviews the crime in question. Therefore, it is imperative that the teacher listen to the podcast before teaching this lesson. 

Options: We have provided a transcript of the portion of the podcast used for this lesson. This opens up options to extend the lesson by having students 1)listen to the podcast again and follow along in the transcript, or 2) identify certain grammatical constructs such as past tense verbs in the transcript.

Procedure:

1). Divide the class into groups of 3, and provide each group with an electronic or paper transcript of an excerpt from Season 2, Episode 2 of the In the Dark, The Route to each group (provided).

2). There are three speakers in the transcript. Each group of students should read the transcript aloud like a play, with a student in each group playing the part of Madeleine, Joanne, or Roy.  

3). After the students have read the transcript, have each group spend 5 minutes answering the following question: Why would Roy be afraid of investigator John Johnson?

4). Have a spokesperson from each group report on the answer to the above question.

5). Using the evidence provided on the following website, the instructor should provide some additional information about the case against Curtis Flowers,  including a map of the crime scene, and information about jailhouse snitches. https://www.apmreports.org/in-the-dark/season-two

6). Again, working in the same groups of 3, have each group craft 2 or 3 questions that they would like to ask the investigator John Johnson.

7). With the teacher playing the role of the John Johnson, have the students query the teacher. 

Options: Steps 6 and 7 could take longer if the teacher has some knowledge of the case. If not, it is fine to just have the students ask questions, and have “John Johnson” be fairly uncommunicative and antagonistic, since that is how the reports present him in the podcast.

Procedure:

1). Listen to the portion of the In the Dark podcast that the students just read. Season 2, Epsiode 2, minutes 15-19.

2). Have a short discussion on the defining features of the pronunciation in the podcast. Roy Harris and Joanne both have heavily accented speech, and Roy’s hearing is impaired as a result of a traumatic childhood injury to his head. 

3). Using the transcript again, have the students identify information questions, yes/no questions, statements, and imperatives. 

4). Explain intonation, and provide these generalizations.

• Information questions - falling intonation

• Questions expecting a yes/no answer - rising intonation

• Statements - falling intonation

• Imperatives - falling intonation

5). Have the students mark their transcripts up with arrows to indicate falling or rising intonation for the grammatical structures they identified in step 3.

6). Listen to the transcript a second time and have students see if the intonation patterns in the transcript are as expected.

This is a tough 90 minute lesson. For the Exit Ticket, have students say and spell “Mississippi.” This is a fun and rhythmic word to spell if you emphasize the i’s -- m I s s I s s I p p I.

American Public Media has a wealth of information supporting the In the Dark podcast including a map of the crime scene, and links to recent new articles about the case.

https://www.apmreports.org/in-the-dark/season-two

In the past few weeks the poor conditions at Parchment Prison, where Curtis Flowers was held for over 20 years have become national news. Here is one article from CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/28/us/mississippi-prison-governor-shuts-down-unit/index.html

Using the website Sonix, we were able to type out a transcript of the portion of the podcast we used for this lesson. This was very helpful in planning the lesson, especially the timeline exercise. With the transcript, you also could easily expand this lesson to cover grammar points, or use the lesson with lower level ELL.

https://sonix.ai/resources/full-transcript-in-the-dark-s2-e1-july-16-1996/

• Podcast Event Timeline

• Post-Listening Discussion

• In the Dark S2E1 Transcript

• In the Dark S2E2 Transcript