The Crime and True Crime Literature course made its debut in the 2023-2024 academic year at State College Area High School. This class is offered as a half year English elective, mostly to seniors, and is taught by Mrs. Cunningham and Mrs. Camerlengo. 

The course begins with a deep dive into the ethics behind true crime and why it’s presented, along with its origin. As the course progresses, students get to explore more modern true crime stories and analyze them. This includes TV shows, movies, novels, etc. The course ends with groups of students making their own podcast that surrounds a specific true crime event. 

“We had a lot of creative liberty with regard to the name of the podcast, how things were discussed, music and background images for the podcast […] it was undeniably more fun than just writing an essay,” Ash Currall, a senior who had previously taken this class, said. 

Currall elaborated on how this English class is not like an ordinary one and contains much more creative liberty, with the content and the projects.

Currall and Cunningham both expanded upon their favorite unit to learn and teach: Unit 2. In this unit, students get an opportunity to learn more about America’s first female serial killer — Jane Toppan. 

“We read [‘America’s First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of the Monster’] and it’s written in a really compelling way where we get an annotated newspaper article from the murderer herself. What she was thinking, as well as the detective reports, as well as the story narration,” Cunningham said. 

Cunningham also expands upon the benefits of taking this English course. Students get the opportunity to utilize their English writing, reading, analyzing, and researching skills into something that is extremely ‘engaging, interesting, and fun’. This course provides a way to balance rigor and enjoyment. 

“If you find yourself bored in English 10 or 11, True Crime is definitely a good class for you, even if you’re not particularly interested in true crime at first. It is pretty consistently enjoyable and fun, and it’s probably my favorite English class that I’ve taken,” Currall said.