NIC Murder Mystery class strikes again
NIC students who took part in the college’s first “Murder Mystery” class last May ham it up for a selfie in the United Kingdom. The students are, from left: Diona Morse, Nora Kennedy, Josh Imhoff, Victoria Robbins, Leonard Morse, Mary Cowin, Cassidy Livingston, Brett Janson, and Peggy Gunther. Photos provided by NIC.
Victoria Robbins, one of the first students to travel to the United Kingdom as part of a new NIC class, steps out of the shadows of a museum in Edinburgh.
Footsteps clacked on the cobblestones behind them. They couldn’t make out the dark figure in the legendary London fog but, whoever it was, they were coming straight for them. There was nowhere to go – the figure was upon them.
“Y’all ready for your tour?” said North Idaho College student Peggy Gunther, who was originally from Georgia before Idaho.
Gunther is one of 16 NIC students who took part in the college’s first Contemporary World Cultures (FLAN 207) class that focused on British murder mysteries and culminated in a two-week trip to London, Scotland, and Wales last May. NIC English instructors Aaron Cloyd and Molly Michaud led the group, which was such a success they are planning another trip next spring.
The three novels the class read for were “Even Dogs in the Wild” by Ian Rankin, set in Edinburgh, Scotland; “King Solomon’s Carpet” by Barbara Vine, set in London; and “Complicit” by Gillian E. Hamer, set in North Wales.
To save on the price of tours and use experiential learning, students were paired together and assigned a real geographic location. The whole class read all the books, but then each partnered group would have their own murder mystery spot where they would give a real-life tour that related to the book. Students are able to juxtapose actual United Kingdom geography – towers, rivers, crypts, alleys, castles – with the literature.
“Molly and I chose these books because they were so geography-specific. We were able to walk through these areas and tour them from reading the book,” Cloyd said.
Professional tour guides for these areas were costly, he said, but this method was a learning experience for the students as well allowing them to cut the expense in half.
“FLAN is a cultural awareness class. It taught the murder mystery, but it was also a bridge to cultural awareness,” Cloyd said. “We had students who had never been out of Idaho before. We had students sitting in the Seattle airport saying that was my first plane flight.”
There were surprises for everyone. The food was much better than billed. Learning to live with 19 people without break was an experience that took getting used to and researching each murder mystery spot had its own unique challenges. Yet, reflecting on her experiences, NIC student Allison Gneckow described the course and time abroad as a “true gift,” an experience that has encouraged her to travel again.
Throughout the course and travel, a study of culture remained the focus. Student Diona Morse recalled one student who had never been further than Spokane before the United Kingdom trip, but couldn’t get enough of the cultural exposure.
“He just lit up,” Morse said. “He will forever be a traveler now.”
For more information call or email Molly Michaud at (208) 769-7878 or molly.michaud@nic.edu; or Aaron Cloyd at (208) 769-7711 or aaron.cloyd@nic.edu.
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Tom Greene is a communications coordinator employed by North Idaho College.