Exploring the Castles of the World

A Webquest for 9th-12th Grade
Designed by Sarah Mae Harper

Introduction

You are a tour coordinator for a travel agency. A group calls and wants you to design a tour of castles in a certain country for them. The tour will last three weeks and they would like to see as many as they can. Before they go they want to see an itinerary, a schedule of their trip, and a brief description of each castle they will be visiting.

The Task

Your job is to create an itinerary for a three-week castle tour and a handout with brief, but interesting, descriptions of each castle the group will visit. Both the itinerary and the castle descriptions must be typed. You must also cite the sources you used for your research using MLA guidelines*. You will need access to the Web for some of the research and a word processor to type your final copies.

*Note to students: If you do not have a style sheet, ask your English teacher for one.

The Process

1. First you will be divided into groups of two.

2. Next you will decide what country, or section of the United States, you will use for your assignment. Your choices are: Britain, Scotland, Poland, Spain, Germany, Northeast U.S., Southeast U.S., Central (time zone) U.S., Mountain (time zone) U.S., or West coast of the U.S.

3. Now you will begin your research with these resources:

Online Resources

Castles as Hotels in Germany
http://www.rhinecastles.com

Medieval Castles Near Heidelberg and Rhine, Germany
http://www.medieval-castles.com

Castles of the United States
http://dupontcastle.com/castles/

Dracula's Castle
http://www.draculascastle.com/index.html

The Castles of Wales
http://www.castlewales.com/home.html

Castles of Britain
http://www.castles-of-britain.com

Linlithgow Royal Palace of Scotland
http://www.aboutscotland.com/linlith/gow.html

Offline Resources (can be found in your public library)

Atlases

Travel guides

4. Start designing your itinerary keeping in mind:

distances between sites
mode of travel
hours of operation

5. Now you should start writing your descriptions of the castles featured on your tour. The descriptions should be factual, but also make the traveler want to visit the site. They only need to be a few sentences for each site.

6. Type up everything including your sources using MLA style. Everything should be double-spaced and 12 pt. font.

7. Have someone else proofread your work and make corrections

8. Turn in your final copy.

Evaluation

You will be graded as a group according to this scale:

Beginning
1 Developing
2 Accomplished
3 Exemplary
4 Score

Itinerary Contains little or no valid sites.
Contains impossible distances or too little time given for travel.
Total disregard for posted hours of operation.
Contains many proofreading errors. Contains a few valid sites.
Contains more reasonable distances.
Some disregard for posted hours of operation.
Contains some proofreading errors. Contains some valid sites.
Contains fairly reasonable distances and time for travel.
Posted hours are mostly adhered to.
Contains few proofreading errors. Contains many valid sites.
Contains reasonable distances and adequate time for travel.
Posted hours of operation are adhered to.
Contains no proofreading errors.

Descriptions Contains no interesting facts.
Contains descriptions that have no basis in reality.
Contains many proofreading errors. Contains a few interesting facts.
Contains descriptions that are just quoted from a website or guidebook.
Contains some proofreading errors. Contains some interesting facts.
Contains descriptions mostly in your own words.
Contains few proofreading errors. Contains interesting facts.
Contains descriptions in your own words.
Contains no proofreading errors.

Sources No sources cited.
Sources not done in proper MLA style. All sources are not cited.
Citations have proofreading errors. Most sources are cited.
Citations have minimal proofreading errors. All sources are cited using proper MLA style.

Conclusion

Now you know more about planning and marketing a tour. If you are interested in this as a career you can find information about this and related careers at The Princeton Review .

Credits

The template for this page was provided by The Webquest Page.

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	Beginning 1	Developing 2	Accomplished 3	Exemplary 4	Score
Itinerary	Contains little or no valid sites. Contains impossible distances or too little time given for travel. Total disregard for posted hours of operation. Contains many proofreading errors.	Contains a few valid sites. Contains more reasonable distances. Some disregard for posted hours of operation. Contains some proofreading errors.	Contains some valid sites. Contains fairly reasonable distances and time for travel. Posted hours are mostly adhered to. Contains few proofreading errors.	Contains many valid sites. Contains reasonable distances and adequate time for travel. Posted hours of operation are adhered to. Contains no proofreading errors.
Descriptions	Contains no interesting facts. Contains descriptions that have no basis in reality. Contains many proofreading errors.	Contains a few interesting facts. Contains descriptions that are just quoted from a website or guidebook. Contains some proofreading errors.	Contains some interesting facts. Contains descriptions mostly in your own words. Contains few proofreading errors.	Contains interesting facts. Contains descriptions in your own words. Contains no proofreading errors.
Sources	No sources cited. Sources not done in proper MLA style.	All sources are not cited. Citations have proofreading errors.	Most sources are cited. Citations have minimal proofreading errors.	All sources are cited using proper MLA style.