Teaching with the Web:
A Collection of Online Treasure Hunts and Webquests

The Folklore of Bohol: A WebQuest for First Year High School (English)

Authored by P. Arinto and F. Tanggaan


Introduction
Some people think that one of the most amazing sights on Earth is the Chocolate Hills in Bohol. Many who see it wonder how these hundreds of mounds of the same size could have been formed. Scientists will probably have an explanation or two. But we have another source of an explanation, and that is folklore.

Do you know the legend of the Chocolate Hills? Do you know other legends and folktales that are set in Bohol? If your answer is no, this webquest will help you fill in the gaps in your knowledge of our local culture. If your answer is yes, this activity will help you share what you know with other young people.

The Task
Your task is to make an illustrated re-telling of a folktale (that is, a legend, fable, or myth) that is set in Bohol or that is about anything that can be found in Bohol. The intended audience of your re-telling is children aged 9-12 years. Your version of the story must help them appreciate local or folk stories. This means that you must re-tell the story in a style that will appeal to your audience and make colorful illustrations that they will find engaging or interesting. Your story must also be accompanied by a fun learning activity that will help young readers apply what they learned from the story. For example, you could have a matching activity in which you ask your readers to match the character with their favorite object. Or you could have them color a drawing of a scene in the story using colors of their own choice.

Your re-telling of a folktale will be included in a website on Bohol folklore to be made by the school’s e-Learning Club. Thus, you will need to encode your story in document format and scan your illustrations and place them in the appropriate parts of the document. Encode the learning activity as part of the same file. Your teacher will teach you how to encode text and scan pictures.

You can get your folktale either from a book (a collection of folklore from Bohol) or from older persons in the community (for example, your lola or lolo) whom you can persuade to tell you these kinds of stories. The Process section includes what steps to follow in order that you can accomplish this task.

Process
1. You will work in groups of four. Each group member must have a specific role. Once you have been assigned to your group, discuss with them who among you will play each role. The roles are:

2. To be able to locate, choose, and re-tell a folktale, you need to know what a folktale is and what its various types are. You will gain this necessary background information through an online treasure hunt using the online resources listed for this webquest. Your teacher will ask you to do the online treasure hunt in the computer lab on a designated class session.

3. After gaining an understanding of the different types of folktales and the structure of a folktale, you should look for the folktale that you will transform into an illustrated “book.”

This is the responsibility of the Researcher but it would help him/her find the right story if the whole group will first agree about what place or object they would like their story to be about. For example, you could as a group decide that you would like to make an illustrated book about the legend of how Tagbilaran got its name, or how Mount Elijer was formed, or how the Loboc River came to be. Come up with three alternatives so that the Researcher will have options left in case he/she cannot find a story about your first choice.

As mentioned earlier, the Researcher can look for stories in a book or printed collection of Boholano folktales or ask an elder to tell a story. The Researcher should take down the story, taking care not to omit any detail. Also take note of the source. If the source is an elder, write down the name and time and date when he/she told the story to you.

Your group should have chosen and found your story within one to two weeks.

4. Meet again as a group and discuss the story recorded by the Researcher. Decide how you would like the story to be re-told by the Writer of the group. Remember that the intended audience is children aged 9-12 years old.

The Writer will then (re)write the story as agreed upon by the group. The Writer should finish his/her work in three days.

5. Meet as a group and go over the draft story as written by the Writer. Make the improvements that you think should be made.

Then discuss with the Illustrator of the group what parts of the story you think should be illustrated. Not all of the scenes need to be illustrated. But the key scenes should be.

The Illustrator will then do his/her work. You can draw on ordinary bond paper and use any coloring materials such as crayons or coloring pens. The illustrations should be completed in three-five days.

6. Go over the Illustrator’s drawings/illustrations together and decide on the final set of drawings to be scanned and included in your book. This meeting should take place in the computer laboratory, preferably on a Saturday (your teacher can schedule a common meeting for all groups), as this is when you will encode your story and scan your illustrations.

While the Writer and Illustrator are working on the computer, the Instructional Designer should be making the learning activity to be included in your book. The Researcher can assist the Instructional Designer if needed. In any case, all members of the group should approve the learning activity before it is finalized and encoded.

While doing your work in this step and the previous steps, be guided by the rubric for grading your group output that is given in the Evaluation section.

7. When you have finished encoding your story, complete with illustrations and the learning activity, print a copy and submit it to your teacher.

8. Write a short essay on what you enjoyed most in this activity, what you found most difficult, and what you learned. This is the self-assessment activity, for which you will also receive a grade. This is an individual activity: each member should write his/her own essay.

Each member should also fill in the peer evaluation form.

Submit your essay and the accomplished peer evaluation forms to your teacher on the due date.

Resources
You will need the background information on folktales that are provided in the following websites.

Folktale, myth, fables and legends
http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/tradmays.htm

What is a folktale
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/ent/A0819070.html

Types of folktale
http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/irs/folktale.htm

What is mythology
http://www.crystalinks.com/mythology1.html

Aesop’s fables
http://www.knowledgerush.com/books/aesopa10.html

Philippine myths
http://www.seasite.niu.edu/tagalog/folktales/mythsintroduction.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Harbor/1320/mmnawit.html
http://www.veranda.com.ph/viloria/alamat/

Your teacher will show you examples of re-tellings of folk stories for young readers that are accompanied by a learning activity.

Evaluation
Your illustrated re-telling of a folktale from Bohol will be graded using the following rubric:
 

Item	Very Good (5 points)	Satisfactory (3 points)	Needs Improvement (1 point)
Choice of story	The story is set in Bohol or is about something found in Bohol. The source of the story is documented.	The story is set in Bohol or is about something found in Bohol but the source is not documented.	The story has no connection to Bohol and the source is not documented.
Re-telling of the story	The story has all of the elements of a folktale. The choice of words and sentence structures are appropriate for young readers aged 9-12 years. The story is written grammatically.	The story has all of the elements of a folktale but the choice of words and sentence structures are not appropriate to young readers. There are a few errors in grammar. OR The story has some missing folktale elements but it is written in a way that young readers will appreciate. There are a few errors in grammar.	The story lacks many elements of a folktale and is written in a way that is not appropriate to young readers. There are many errors in grammar.
Illustrations	All of the key scenes in the story are illustrated. The illustrations are well conceptualized—they complement the text of the story. The style and color of the illustrations are appealing to the target audience.	The illustrations complement the text and their style and color are appealing to young readers but a few key scenes are not illustrated. OR All of the key scenes in the story are illustrated and the style and color of the illustrations are appealing, but some of the illustrations do not complement the text well.	Very few of the key scenes are illustrated, or what are illustrated are not the key scenes at all. The illustrations do not complement the text and the style is not appealing.
Learning Activity	The learning activity is based on or is connected to the story. The learning activity is interesting and enjoyable for young readers.	The activity is connected to the story but is not particularly interesting and enjoyable to young readers. OR The activity is interesting and enjoyable but it is only loosely connected to the story.	The activity is not connected to the story and it is not interesting or enjoyable to young readers.
Format	The text (the story and the learning activity) has been encoded neatly and the illustrations have been scanned and put in their proper places within the text.	There are a few errors in the encoding of the text or the encoding is not complete but the illustrations have been scanned and put in their proper places. OR The complete text has been neatly encoded but some of the illustrations have not been scanned and/or put in their proper places.	There are many errors in encoding or very little of the text is encoded properly and the illustrations have not been scanned and put in their proper places.

The perfect score is 25 points, which in turn will account for 70% of your grade for this project. All group members will receive the same grade or score for the illustrated re-telling of a Boholano folktale, with a learning activity attached. This means that you have to help each other make sure that all parts of your group output meet the standards.

Your will also receive a score for your self-assessment essay and your peers' evaluation of how well you worked with your group. Each score will account for 15% of your final grade for the project.

Conclusion
Folklore is an important repository of our culture. By reading our folk stories, fables and legends, we come to know more about our values as a people. In addition, folklore contains many interesting elements, which makes them so appealing to everyone, both young and old alike.

In making an illustrated re-telling of a folktale, you are helping to promote folklore. You are also helping your fellow young people develop a love for reading as you provide them with interesting materials to read. At the same time, you are developing your own reading and writing skills and developing your creativity.

 

Copyright 2004 by the Foundation for IT Education & Development. All rights reserved.