Are you looking to add in a high interest text to your classroom? Who am I kidding; aren’t all English teachers ALWAYS looking for that?! I am going to cover a few of my favorite podcasts for the classroom over the next few weeks and today I am starting with my favorite- Limetown!
You can click here for resources to help teach the Podcast Limetown here and here!
I will start with a word of caution- this show can get a little intense. I wouldn’t recommend it for middle schoolers.
If you have not discovered Limetown yet, you really should just pause everything in your life and go start listening…..after you are done reading this post of course!
This series is always a big win with my students. In fact, the first time I incorporated it, I actually had to speed up my lesson plans because so many students were listening ahead outside of class.
You can see the series homepage as well as listen to all the episodes here . You can also find it on your podcast feature on your iPhone (sorry I can’t speak to other phones).
PRO TIP: Before listening to any podcast in class, I highly recommend having a hand-brain connection piece. I like to make active listening sheets which work as CLOZE notes they fill in while reading. However, you could also do things like Sketchnotes or mindmaps. Adding in this active part is what will help your students retain even more of what they are hearing and limit the “zoning out” we all dread in our classrooms!
Limetown is a fantastic mystery/suspense podcast that takes you back to the glory days of radio shows. On their website they introduce it by saying the following,
“Ten years ago, over three hundred men, women and children disappeared from a small town in Tennessee, never to be heard from again. American Public Radio reporter Lia Haddock asks the question once more, “What happened to the people of Limetown?”
The beginning hooks my 10th graders every time. The creators did such a fantastic job that they usually think that it is a true crime series at first as they weave in real current events.
When I cover Limetown, we look at how suspense is built (hint hint- RL 5 for all of you still working under Common Core standards). So, if you need a way to tie it into the standards, this is a fantastic rationale. This series has all the great stuff of cliffhangers, flashbacks, new questions coming to the surface each episode, sound effects to add to the drama, and much more.
However, it’s also an interesting hook for you to also highlight research skills and finding credible sources by having students analyze each of Lia’s sources.
If you are ready to dive into Limetown in your own classroom and need the aid of listening sheets while students listen, check out this link.
If you are looking for a slightly larger unit in which students explore mystery and suspense as well as several engaging writing prompts, check out this link. I would LOVE to hear how Limetown goes for your students! Be sure to follow me on Instagram and tag me in your comments!
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