The Arthurian Tradition

"Remember, there's always something cleverer than yourself." - Merlin, Excalibur, 1981 

I created this page because it is important for students to understand that artistic works do not simply come into being but are created by people, and those people are influenced by the world in which they live and the creative works both before their time and of their time. I chose the Arthurian Tradition because of my own interest of Medieval literature and culture, the countless iterations of the tradition available for the students to pick from, and the ubiquity of King Arthur in American culture. People are aware of the basic elements of the King Arthur story not only from books, movies, and television shows, but from a wide array of popular culture sources such as television commercials, billboard ads, and websites. Even those who have never seen a King Arthur movie or read a King Arthur book know a little about King Arthur. This WebQuest will 1) make students become conscious of what they know and 2) prompt them to investigate why they know what they know.

I have created this WebQuest as an assignment for a course I am taking on Adolescent Learning and Development at the City University of New York, City College. As such it addresses several of the concepts covered in that course. In particular, this WebQuest should serve as a tool for helping students develop their metacognition. In addition to making students become conscious of what they know about a particular subject and to prompt them to investigate why they know what they know about it, this WebQuest requires students to look at a few specific items, and through comparison and contrast, draw conclusions applicable not only to that subject but to an entire process at work within every culture.

This can be a challenging activity for high school students, and may require in-class assistance for its successful completion. Some useful strategies for teachers would include:

1) Preparing the class for the assignment by engaging the students' prior knowledge. Through the use of a KWL chart the teacher can see what the students know about King Arthur. Some students may know a lot if they have seen a King Arthur movie or read a King Arthur book, while some may know very little. However, it is likely that many of the students in the class know something, even if it is just that King Arthur was a king of England, or that he was a knight. Doing this exercise is useful for a teacher to gauge how much of a learning curve there will be for students on the background research part of the WebQuest.

2) Offering other examples of traditions that may be more contemporary (and thus potentially more accessible) to students, such as Batman, who over the past seventy years has appeared in thousands of comic books, a television series, and several movies, most recently in 2008. The teacher can model the strategies of this WebQuest by picking something such as the 1960s Batman television show and talking about how it follows the Batman canon (for instance, by featuring several villains from the comics) and how it departs from it (most notably in its campiness).

3) Periodic conferences where students let the teacher know their subject piece, how they are progressing with the presentation, and what questions they might have. It is particularly important for the teacher to determine whether the subject piece the students have chosen is appropriate for their skill level and the time frame allotted for the project.

4) Coordinating the WebQuest with a class book. T.H. White's The Once and Future King, in particular the first book, "The Sword in the Stone," is an excellent text for a high school English language arts class to read while doing this assignment. In addition to be a delightful retelling of Malory's version of the King Arthur story, "The Sword in the Stone" is also an insightful story about education with a teenage protagonist, making it ideal for adolescent readers. Although The Once and Future King as a whole is a worthwhile read, at only two hundred pages "The Sword in the Stone" is much more manageable in terms of coordinating it with the WebQuest assignment.

This WebQuest can easily be modified as the teacher sees fit, for instance by modifying the period of time in which the assignment is to be done or by changing the assignment from group presentations to individual essays.

Image: Nicol Williamson as Merlin in Excalibur, 1981