The Corkboard Files: How I Built a Mystery Game to Teach Oligarchy
Oligarchy is one of the hardest types of government to teach. Monarchy has a king, and democracy has voting, but oligarchy is about something students can't easily see: a small group quietly benefiting while everyone else is handed a cover story. I didn't want to lecture about it. I wanted my students to feel what it's like to dig past an official explanation, so I built a murder mystery called The Corkboard Files . The setup is simple. "Big Sal" Marinara, a beloved local pizza man, is found dead the night before opening a restaurant that sells $1 pizzas using a secret cost-cutting recipe. The official story says it was a tragic kitchen accident. Nobody in town believes it. Students work from a classic detective corkboard, complete with red string, surveillance-style photos, and torn-paper clue cards. There are eight suspects, and every one of them had a reason to want Sal's cheap pizza gone. The list includes a rival pizza chain, the cheese and dough supplier...