The Documentation, Interpretation, and Reflection Cycle of Inquiry in the Forest Primes (K/1)

“Documentation helps to ensure that individual and group learning are interdependent and tightly correlated, while simultaneously retaining the unique qualities of both. When their learning is documented, children can revisit and thereby interpret their learning experiences and also reflect on how to develop these experiences further. Interpretation and reflection become fundamental aspects of documentation that are not only retrospective, but also are projected toward the creation of future contexts for learning. Documentation is not limited to making visible what already exists; it also makes things exist precisely because it makes them visible and therefore possible.” - Making Learning Visible: Children as Individual and Group Learners (Project Zero and Reggio Children, 2001)

A couple of weeks ago, Jenny and I noticed an interest in map making spread across the Forest Primes basecamp. As teachers, it’s part of our role to pay attention to what’s going on, but the aforementioned quote from the book Making Learning Visible: Children as Individual and Group Learners reminds me that paying attention is not always enough to propel the ideas of children into true existence. In the Forest Primes, we’re working to use the documentation, interpretation, and reflection cycle of inquiry to create a curriculum that is rooted in the innate interests of the group. 

For a couple of days, we observed children being led on numerous expeditions to uncover buried treasure near hammock spots.

“This time you hide the treasure, and I’ll make the map!” 

“Are you all ready to follow my map?” 

“I’ll follow your map, and then we can switch and all follow your map!”

I watched as friends admired the work of their peers and found inspiration from each other.  

“Who made that dragon? Is that yours Rowan? I want to make a map too!” 

Some maps were constructed from simple swirling lines and symbolic shapes, others were filled with detail and imaginative backstory. In watching such a wide variety of Forest Primes create maps, I realized just how inclusive the act of map making is. Drawing a simple line on a paper, and claiming there’s treasure at the end of the line can make you the leader of a group plan in an instant. My own curriculum building brain lit up in thinking about the possibilities surrounding map making and accessibility, but first we needed to gather some more information about why the creation of maps was exciting to the Forest Primes, so I announced a new, simple rule for the day. “You must come and tell me about your map before you place it in your bin to take home.”

Noa: It’s going to go to my hammock and the treasure will be hidden there. These are the two haunted houses. These are the three wrong ways. This is a giant chipmunk looking for a nut that is 10 miles behind him and 10 inches long. 

Rosa: My map leads to one, two, three, four spots at our basecamp. Like actually anywhere in the forest! That’s the black hole. It’s like a circle that holds a tiny sun and nobody knows what happens when you go in there. If you go in there, you might remember things. 

Rowan: You go this way, and this way, and if you accidentally go this way you are doomed, and if you go this way, you see a friendly sea dragon. This way you’re definitely doomed because of a lava monster, but if you get him and go back you can defeat him and it won’t be so deadly. 

Oona: Where the black dot is, you start. Then you go straight and you do a loopdeloop past. You have to get through the fire to pass. You get the treasure, face more fire, do a loopdeloop, go home and then there’s treasure that you get. 

Bea: The big fort has the treasure, and the dot is where you start. There’s lots of bumps and it’s really long so that’s why it’s hard to do. The people on the map are me, Ruby, Oona, Xyla, and Immy. 

Xyla: It has a golden skull for danger and the little house is your home. This little island has your own hammock and a little cabin and the sea that makes danger and the haunted house that makes danger too. The two x’s are treasure. There are vampires who live in the haunted house and there are smiling heart eye creatures whose eyes never stop being hearts. This map is actually the cover of a book.

Ember: So this is where you start, but then you have to pass a ginormous sea monster that breathes fire. The second obstacle is a black hole that sucks you in. Then there’s a fork in the path that leads two different ways. One way has bacon hanging over a cage, and one way, the other way, has an ocean full of piranha sharks, and past the ocean there are three paths…one leads to a haunted house, one to a smoking, flaming lava pit, and the third to a cupcake guard, (a cupcake that’s alive and has a weapon!). Past the cupcake guard is the treasure. To get past him, you obviously eat him, but it’s dangerous. This path over here smells good like bacon, but you actually get trapped in the cage, and the cage locks, and it just hangs over you, and you want to eat it so bad but you can’t, and if you get to eat it it’s poisonous, so you just die, but you die in pain from the poison. But good thing you have a map so you know where to go, but the treasure can be anything you want like anything you want the most. The thing you want so bad is the treasure. Like in the treasure chest, you could have peace on earth. 

In a quick analysis of these map making ideas, I identified some recurring themes, and I also developed so many questions! There is clearly a lot of danger and many obstacles to overcome. Are Forest Primes interested in conquering fears? Many of the maps show groups of friends on a journey together. Maybe Forest Primes are looking for ways to feel powerful in a group of their peers? So many of the maps include basecamp details: the big fort, hammock spots, beloved chipmunk holes. Are the forest primes trying to make sense of this new, vast space we all inhabit together? The maps are full of symbols! Maybe Forest Primes are interested in exercising their early literacy skills in an imaginative way? Psilas shares that the map he’s most interested in shows Philadelphia where his cousins live. Could the draw for some friends be about the visual representation of real places near and far and how they relate to our identities? 

Jenny and I knew that we wanted to follow, encourage, and scaffold this interest in maps, and we began to think about potential next steps. We also identified some goals we have for the Forest Primes, namely developing a deeper connection to the land we inhabit at basecamp and the spaces we create together. As well as exploring our own individual identities, feeling seen and known within our group. We wonder how maps can play a role in supporting our teacher agenda? Where this interest in maps will lead us, there’s no way to know, but we’re excited to hypothesize, create provocations, and document as we go. Stay tuned!