WebQuests, developed in 1995 by professors at San Diego State University, are inquiry-based, student-centered activities that provide a list of Internet resources for guided research. Although designed for grades K–12, WebQuests can be an engaging learning tool for any age. We found so many excellent Web sites on North Carolina folklife that a WebQuest seemed like a natural. Choose either option for technology credits.

Introduction
What does folklife mean to you? Do you think of Cherokee baskets, North Carolina pottery, mountain ballads, or storytelling? What about home altars, debutante balls, tobacco auctions, African American woodcarvings, home canning, double-dutch jump roping, and community activism? These examples of folklife only scratch the surface.

All of us belong to more than one folk group. We share a sense of community with our families, friends, and colleagues at work, those with a similar dialect, religious affiliates, members of our own ethnic group, and people who share political and other beliefs. Such groups may have existed for years or centuries, or they may form temporarily. No matter how formal or informal the group, each creates a specific culture and tradition. Community traditions are a means of holding together people and place.

Individuals assume regional identities, such as Southerner or North Carolinian. Ways of speaking, holding a community parade or festival, making barbecue, or conducting a church service are just a few expressions of regional identity. A region’s heritage, new traditions, and geography shape its culture. For instance, those who make utilitarian crafts often use indigenous materials. Thus, the clay-rich Piedmont has developed a thriving pottery community, the Cherokee have made baskets using materials found in their native mountains, and woodcarvers on the coast make waterfowl decoys.

America and North Carolina have long been called melting pots, but today we are learning that cultural differences offer opportunities to enrich communities. By comparing cultural traditions, we can learn from all of them.

Folklife and the Five Themes of Geography
All five themes of geography are integrally intertwined in a study of folklife.

In addition, the topic of folklife incorporates United States and North Carolina history, anthropology, archaeology, sociology, language arts, home economics, the arts, and psychology.

WebQuest Option 1
Process and Task

You have just watched a popular television program set outside the Southeast that you normally enjoy. However, this episode angers you. In it, a main character travels to North Carolina to visit a friend. While there, the character encounters stereotypical Southern ways that make the North Carolinians seem uneducated and old fashioned. This portrayal angers you enough that you want to write a letter to the show’s producer explaining that the depiction was inaccurate. In fact, you want to say, North Carolinians have a rich, vibrant, varied folklife that should be celebrated, not simplified or ridiculed.

Your task: Write a letter to the producer expressing your views on North Carolina’s folkways. Use specific examples from the Web sites listed below to show the complexity and importance of the state’s folkways. Include examples of how the state’s folklife has spread and influenced a larger area. Explain, too, that North Carolina’s ways are not stuck in the past but actively blend past traditions with the customs of newcomers, visitors, and, yes, television and other media. You may either email your letter to tricia.l.blakistone@ncdcr.gov or post your letter on the workshop’s Bulletin Board.

WebQuest Option 2
Process and Task

Your school district (or school or home school area) has announced that it will hold a daylong festival celebrating the folklife—traditional and current—of its area (be it county or city). Musicians, storytellers, artisans, dancers, chefs, “wildcrafters” (people who use natural remedies), and others will be invited to demonstrate and to educate students on the area’s culture and heritage. Everyone is looking forward to the day. During the festival-planning process, a basic question arises: What is unique about the folklife of this area, and why? Is it enough to call it the folklife of the Coastal Plain, Piedmont, or Mountains, or even the whole of North Carolina? This question must be addressed before the planning can continue. Your principal has designated you to begin the research.

Your task: Investigate the Web sites below to learn about aspects of folklife in North Carolina. Then take a good look at your area. Is there a craft that’s predominant or unique? A type of religious service? Is there a community festival or other annual or seasonal tradition? An accent or recipe that’s seldom found outside the area? Has a community joined together to rally a cause? Record what you find, either in a narrative or outline, comparing local traditions to those you read about in the Web sites. Next, try to identify how and why the unique ways developed. Conclude by describing how the folklife in your area is changing with new influences. You may either email your letter to tricia.l.blakistone@ncdcr.gov or post your letter on the workshop’s Bulletin Board.

List of Resources

General

North Carolina Arts Council
http://www.ncarts.org/index.cfm

UNC University Library: Documenting the American South
http://docsouth.unc.edu/

John C. Campbell Folk School
http://www.folkschool.org/

The Museum of the Native American Resource Center
http://www.uncp.edu/nativemuseum/

North Carolina Folklore Society
http://www.ecu.edu/ncfolk/index.htm

Charlotte Folk Society
http://www.folksociety.org/index.shtml

El Pueblo
http://www.elpueblo.org/

Storytelling/folklore

Storytelling of the North Carolina Native Americans
http://www.ibiblio.org/storytelling/

The Moonlit Road
http://www.themoonlitroad.com/

Sea Grant of N.C.: Coastal Storytellers Spin Fish House Tales and Other Whoppers
http://www.ncseagrant.org/home/coastwatch/coastwatch-articles?task=showArticle&id=546

Ghost Stories of North Carolina
http://www.ibiblio.org/ghosts/toc.html

Food

North Carolina's Soups and Stews
http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/workshops/geography/soup.htm

Our Immigrant and Native Ancestors: Southern food evolved from many ethnic influences
http://www.uwf.edu/tprewitt/sofood/past.htm

Me Three: My North Carolina Family: A Family Meal as Bucolic Art
http://www.methree.net/contents/Story2.html

Key Ingredients: America by Food: 500 Years of American Food
http://www.keyingredients.org/001_timeline/001_timeline_01.asp

NorthCarolina.com: North Carolina Barbecue
http://www.northcarolinatravels.com/food/barbecue/index.html

Language

Linguistics at NC State: The North Carolina Language and Life Project
http://www.ncsu.edu/linguistics/

International Dialects of English: Dialects of North Carolina
http://www.ku.edu/~idea/northamerica/usa/northcarolina/northcarolina.htm

PBS: Do You Speak American? American Varieties
http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/ (click on A Prefixing, Lumbee, R-ful Southern, and Smoky Mountains)

NationalGeographic.com: Appalachians Are Finding Pride in Mountain Twang
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0502_050502_twang.html

Craft

Southern Highland Craft Guild
http://www.southernhighlandguild.org/

UNC-TV Online: Folkways: The Potters of Seagrove
http://www.unctv.org/folkways/sgpotters/index.html

Music

Carolina Music Ways: History
http://www.carolinamusicways.org/history.html

NC Arts: Jazz
http://www.ncarts.org/newsletter/win01pgs/ketch.html

Community Activism

ibiblio- Activism at Home
http://www.ibiblio.org/index.old/index.jan2003.html

Arts North Carolina: Advocacy
http://www.artsnc.org/advocacy/

Grassroots Partners of the Center for Participatory Change
http://www.cpcwnc.org/grassroots.html

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