William Burke and William Hare– Real Life Body Snatchers!! Revamped for Distance Learning!!
This Halloween, I’m going to spice up my Forensics class with a spooky study of real life murders and grave robbers! William Burke, William Hare, and Dr. Knox are said to be the inspiration for the Robert Louis Stevenson short story “The Body Snatchers”. My classes will be investigating these real life resurrectionists via my iBook on Burke and Hare. If you’d like to use it with your classes, it is published on my website at https://www.drsmontgomery.com/forensics.html
Within the published slide show, there is information on Burke an Hare, as well as Human Dissection. It even contains the text for Robert Louis Stevenson’s short story “The Body Snatcher” with a link to an audible reading of the text, as well as questions embedded within the story.
My students always love this really short unit. Often, the Senior English teacher has my students studying “Frankenstein” at this time of the year and it makes a good correlation with this text. Assessment will probably be done formally with a traditional quiz, but, I have also had my students write a short paper or essay comparing the real life case to the “Body Snatcher” short story. It is a quick unit that my students always enjoy at this time of year.
Happy Halloween 🙂
