Try a Podcast!

You've got to try this one!

     The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel is a podcast with three seasons. Season 1 has ten episodes, and that's just enough to teach most (if not all) of the skills you would use to teach a novel, and leave your students wanting more.  This award-winning mystery series podcast has been described as "a high-quality serial mystery story for middle graders, performed by actual kids. Think Goonies, meets Spy Kids, meets Stranger Things." The series was written by Sheela Chari, Jenny Turner Hall, David Kreizman and Ben Strouse. 

           I've taught novel skills using this podcast to my 6th graders twice now, and they love it!  As we listen together and afterward, I make sure that students have access to the text of each episode to review for quizzes or clarify any confusion. I access the text by paying $15 for PDFs of the scripts.  Here is a link to the scripts (https://gzmshows.sellfy.store/p/mars-patel-season-1/).  It's so much fun to listen to the students make predictions and question what characters do and say and put themselves in the characters' shoes. 

            At the beginning of the first episode of season 1, one of the kids from the group of main characters has gone missing, and before the first episode is over, a second disappears.  Right from the start, your students will be engaged with the story and enjoying both its humor and intrigue.


           This podcast can be used to teach plot elements, character development, point of view, protagonist and antagonist, round and flat characters, inferencing, predicting, summarizing and more.  If you visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store, you will find that I have done all the prep work to teach the entire first season for you. 


Included in this resource for all episodes, you will find editable:

A Jeopardy style entire-season review game is also included (Canva). Students can use this to challenge a classmate, or the entire class can work together on it.


          This product includes ten digital Google Slides presentations using the Pear Deck Add-on. Vocabulary lists and quizzes are Google Docs.  The slides can certainly be used without the add-on but are designed to be used with it. To use the slides without the Pear Deck Add-on, simply click the Pear Deck rectangle at the bottom of each slide and delete it.

          I hope you and your students enjoy listening to (and learning from) this podcast as much as my students and I did!


Teach on, Friends! The world needs you! 

Stacy