The Mystery Files · Case 01Key Use: InformELD-LA~18 min
The Lantern in the Stacks
A light moved after the archive closed. Describe it before you decide who moved it. The path branches. What you ask, and what you do with the evidence, changes the ending.
Nia Calder's first night in the Harbor City archive begins with a lantern that is no longer where Jun left it. She has to listen to the closing report, read the desk note, and tell Detective Voss what was observed.
Communicative Objective
Students describe what a witness observed and separate that observation from a guess about who moved the lantern.
Story Cast in This Case
Nia Calder
Student investigator
Detective Omar Voss
Case lead
JP
Jun Park
Archive keeper
Target Academic Vocabulary (6 Terms)
observe: to notice something with your senses
evidence: a detail that helps show an idea is reasonable
inference: an idea you build from evidence, not a fact you saw
witness: a person who tells what they saw or heard
detail: one specific piece of information
report: a spoken or written account of what happened