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King Arthur's

Introduction

Welcome to Camelot! King Arthur has chosen you to advise him in this year's Knights of the Round Table selection process. In teams of three, determine which eleven knights of the realm should sit closest to him this year. You must study the candidates carefully, as there are many worthy of this special honor.  Now, get ready to step back in time and begin your WebQuest.

Each team of three will design a seating chart on poster board showing each selected knight's assigned position around King Arthur's Round Table. Your seating charts should include a combination of graphics and text to illustrate why that knight holds that particular honored position. These will be shared orally with classmates and compared to those of the other teams in order to see which knights are the class's top choices.

An optional presentation choice will be to create a slide show with Kid Pix Studio, HyperStudio, Digital Chisel, or PowerPoint (if available for use) to cover these same ideas.

Resources

Use this space to point out places on the internet (or physical resources in the classroom) that will be available for the learners to use to accomplish the task. Embed the link within a description of each resource so that your learners know in advance what they're clicking on.

The Constructivist Project Design Guide maintained by Columbia University's Institute for Learning Technologies is a treasure trove of ideas for teachers. (This is just an example sentence with an link embedded within it.)

The Process

Before beginning this WebQuest, each of you must first read King Arthur: His Knights and Their Ladies by Johanna Johnston (Scholastic, Inc., 1979).
 

1. Who will be your two other teammates?  Decide this, and then choose which point of view each of you will take to examine each knight's Round Table worthiness.  You may choose to be the moralist, the military strategist, or the political advisor.

• Moralist: examines each knight's worthiness according to moral standards such as justice, kindness, politeness, spirituality, truth, respect for others, etc.
• Military strategist: examines each knight's worthiness according to battle skills, bravery, loyalty to king, etc.
• Political advisor: examines each knight's worthiness according to how his selection to the roundtable enhances the kingdom's growth and power, what allies he'd bring, etc.

2. Examine the information about each knight available on the suggested web sites from your selected point of view, and collect evidence to support your choices for the eleven knights to be honored at this year's Round Table.  Be sure to collect graphics to illustrate your choices at the same time.  Save this information to a diskette for later study.

3. Compare your evidence and choices with the other members of your team, and decide which eleven knights you will honor and where they will sit around King Arthur's table.  You must also decide what evidence you will present to your classmates as to each knight's worthiness.

4. Together create your poster board seating chart or slide show presentation and be ready to share it with your classmates on the assigned day.  Think of a clock face as if it were his roundtable.  Make King Arthur the twelve o' clock position. The knights you seat closest to him should be the most honored.

Evaluation

After each team's presentation, the class will tally how many mentions each knight received in each position by means of a spreadsheet.  That will determine this year's class Round Table decision.

The teacher will then give each team a grade based on the following criteria:

• The seating chart has a title, a date, and the names of each team member and the role he/she played in the selection process. - 8 points

• King Arthur, represented by both his name and some art, is on top. - 2 points

• Each position on the seating chart includes: the knight's name, a brief written justification of worthiness, and some representational art (computer generated or hand drawn). - 3 points per position (33 possible)

• Accuracy of information about the knights depicted (matches the commonly held history/literature) - 2 points

• The oral presentation is dynamic (e.g.. background music, costumes, clear speech, etc.) - 5 points

Each team's point total will then be doubled for a final score.

Conclusion

Put a couple of sentences here that summarize what they will have accomplished or learned by completing this activity or lesson. You might also include some rhetorical questions or additional links to encourage them to extend their thinking into other content.