This is the third post in the Playful Thinking series, exploring Harvard Project Zero’s Visual Thinking Routines and how they can make learning more purposeful, more playful, and more powerful for every learner.
That One Time the Solar System Wouldn’t Fit in the Classroom
We had just finished watching a series of videos about the scale of the solar system. If you haven’t seen these videos, they are humbling — in one, the filmmakers drove out into the Nevada desert with a marble-sized Earth and tried to place the planets at true scale. They needed seven miles. Seven miles for just our solar system. The kids were stunned.
Now I was asking them to build a model of the solar system. In our classroom. With ten metres of space.
Before we touched a single piece of card or looked at a single measurement, I handed out a graphic organiser divided into four sections. A compass.
- What excites you about this project?
- What worries you about this project?
- What will you need for this project?
- What steps will you need to take to complete it?
I gave them a few minutes to fill it in quietly. Then we shared.
The Excites section was full of exactly what you’d expect — space is cool, building things is fun, I want to make Saturn’s rings. But the Worries section stopped the room.
Several students had written some version of the same thing: the scale. They had been paying attention to those videos. They knew that a true-scale model in ten metres was, mathematically, impossible — or at least that something would have to give. One student had already started scribbling numbers in the margin of her paper. Another had written simply: “How small does Earth have to be?”
That one worry — genuine, specific, mathematically grounded — became the driving question of the entire project. Not because I planned it that way. Because the compass had made it visible.
What Is Compass Points?
Compass Points is a Visual Thinking Routine from Harvard Project Zero’s Visible Thinking framework. It uses the metaphor of a compass — four directions, each representing a different angle of thinking — to help learners explore an idea, proposal, project, or question from multiple perspectives before diving in.
In its original form, the four directions are:
- E — Excites (or Enthuses): What excites or energises you about this?
- W — Worries: What concerns or unsettles you?
- N — Needs: What do you need to know more about?
- S — Stance (or Steps or Suggestions): Where do you stand? What would your next step be?
Like all Project Zero thinking routines, it is deliberately simple in structure — easy to remember, easy to return to, flexible enough to work across almost any subject or age group. The thinking it generates, though, is anything but simple.
And here is something I have come to love about this particular routine: you do not have to use those exact labels. The compass is a frame. What goes in the four directions is yours to decide.
How Compass Points Works — and How to Make It Your Own
This is where I want to be honest about how I actually use this routine, because the way I use it has evolved considerably from the textbook version.
Version 1: The project compass
The solar system example above is my most recent use of Compass Points, and it is probably the version I reach for most often now. When a project or task is coming up, I hand learners a graphic organiser with four sections: What excites you? What worries you? What will you need? What steps will you take?
Notice that last direction. In the original routine, S stands for Stance — where do you stand on this idea? For a project context, I swap it for Steps — what will you actually do? This small change makes the compass action-oriented. It is not just a reflection tool; it becomes a planning tool. Learners leave the activity with the beginnings of a project roadmap, and I leave it knowing exactly where their anxiety is concentrated — which means I can address it before it becomes a problem.
The scale worry from the solar system project is a perfect example. If I had launched straight into the build, that anxiety would have sat quietly and grown. The compass brought it into the open on day one, and we could tackle it together.
Version 2: The four corners
This is the classic physical version. Post the four compass directions around the room and give learners a prompt — a proposal, a dilemma, a statement. Ask them to move to the corner that best reflects their initial response.
I have a colleague who used this with an ecology unit: “The wetland should be developed to bring jobs and economic growth to the area.” She told me about a student who walked straight to the Worries corner, crossed her arms, and said — very quietly but with complete conviction — “The frogs.” Just that. Two words that stopped the room and launched fifteen minutes of the most genuine discussion her class had all year.
I have never used that exact prompt, but I know my students well enough to picture exactly how it would play out — I can see the particular student who would say something like that, the crossed arms, the quiet certainty. That is what a good routine does. It creates the conditions for that moment. You just have to put the compass up and wait.
In the four corners version, learners commit to a position with their bodies as well as their words. The physical movement changes the energy in the room entirely. And watching where learners go — and who hesitates at the threshold between two corners — tells you something a worksheet never could.
Version 3: The reimagined compass
This is where things get really interesting for language teachers.
I teach adverbs of frequency — never, sometimes, every day — and I have adapted Compass Points into a frequency response activity. Instead of the original four directions, the corners of the room become:
- Never
- Sometimes
- Every day
- What? (I need more information or examples)
I give learners a statement — “I eat cake for breakfast” — and ask them to go to the corner that reflects how often that is true for them, or how they feel about it.
Now, some learners will have no trouble with this. But others — particularly those who are still building vocabulary — might genuinely not be able to reconcile the words cake and breakfast. In English, cake is a celebration food. Breakfast is a morning routine. For some cultural backgrounds, those two things simply do not go together in the same sentence, and the meaning becomes unclear.
The What? corner gives those learners somewhere to go that is not wrong. It is not a failure of comprehension — it is an honest signal: I need more input before I can respond to this. And that signal is incredibly useful to me as a teacher.
When learners go to What?, I provide more comprehensible input. A picture of someone literally eating cake at a breakfast table. An AI-generated image of a slice of birthday cake next to a cup of morning coffee. A short video clip. Whatever it takes to make the meaning clear — and then the learner can move to their real corner.
This version of Compass Points is doing something beautifully layered. It is teaching the target language (adverbs of frequency), providing a low-stakes way to practise it, and simultaneously checking for comprehension gaps without anyone having to admit they are confused. The What? corner removes the shame from not knowing. And that, as any language teacher knows, is half the battle.
Why It Works — The Thinking Behind the Compass
Compass Points builds several layers of thinking at once.
It teaches perspective-taking before opinion-forming. Many classroom discussions start with “What do you think?” — which often means the first voice sets the direction for everyone else. Compass Points interrupts that. By asking learners to sit with both what excites and what worries them about the same idea, it builds in complexity before a single word is spoken aloud. That complexity is closer to how good thinking actually works.
It separates feeling from reasoning. The Worries direction gives learners permission to name what unsettles them — which is not the same as arguing against something. The Needs direction asks them to identify gaps in their own knowledge. These are different cognitive moves, and naming them separately makes each one stronger.
It values the incomplete thought. A student who writes “the scale” in the Worries column has not finished thinking. But they have started — specifically and honestly. Compass Points treats that starting point as real and worth building on. It lowers the bar for participation in exactly the right way: not about having the answer, but about having a thought.
It prepares learners for genuine discussion. When everyone has mapped their thinking before the conversation begins, the discussion that follows is richer. Learners are not scrambling to form opinions in real time — they are sharing thinking they have already done. They are more specific, more confident, and more genuinely curious about where others have landed.
Why It’s Perfect for Language Learners — The CI Connection
The four directions of Compass Points provide ready-made sentence frames that learners can use again and again, across units and topics:
- This excites me because…
- I’m worried about…
- I need to know more about…
- My next step is…
These are not artificial language exercises. They are real communicative purposes — expressing enthusiasm, voicing concern, identifying gaps, planning action — that learners will use in every area of their lives. Practised repeatedly inside the Compass Points structure, they become acquired structures. Not memorised. Acquired.
The reimagined frequency compass takes this even further. Never, sometimes, every day are not just corners of a room — they are words learners are hearing, reading, and using in a genuinely meaningful context. The What? corner adds something that most language activities do not: an honest, safe way to signal that input is not yet comprehensible. And when I respond to that signal with more input — a picture, an image, a gesture — I am doing exactly what Stephen Krashen described: meeting learners where they are, and making meaning clear.
That is comprehensible input in action. The routine creates the conditions; the learner tells me what they need; I provide it. Simple. Powerful. And genuinely playful.
Why It Belongs in Every Classroom — Not Just Language Class
The solar system example is science. The wetland example is geography or environmental studies. But Compass Points travels.
In history: “Napoleon’s invasion of Russia was a bold and necessary strategic decision.” The Excites corner fills with students who admire ambition; Worries fills with students thinking about the human cost; Needs is full of questions about supply lines and winter conditions. Real historical thinking, out loud.
In literature: “The main character made the right choice.” Compass Points turns a comprehension question into a values discussion. Learners are not just retelling — they are evaluating, justifying, and discovering that reasonable people can read the same story and land in entirely different places.
In maths: Use it with a design choice or a constraint problem. “We should present our data as a pie chart.” The Needs direction alone — what do we need to know before we can decide? — can generate the mathematical inquiry questions for a whole lesson.
Any time you have a proposal, a project, a dilemma, or a decision in your classroom, Compass Points is the right tool. It takes the thing you were going to discuss anyway and gives it structure, depth, and genuine voice.
The Playful Twist
Compass Points is naturally energising — especially in the four corners version, where learners are moving and committing physically. But here are some ways to make it even more playful.
Adapt the directions to fit your purpose. This is the most important twist I can offer, and it is not really a twist — it is just permission. The compass is a frame. Rename the directions to suit your topic, your learners, and your goals. Excites / Worries / Needs / Steps for a project. Never / Sometimes / Every day / What? for a language activity. Love / Loathe / Wonder / Would change for a book response. Once you start thinking of the four directions as flexible, you will see compass-shaped thinking opportunities everywhere.
Make the prompt genuinely provocative. The more debatable your statement, the better the compass. Avoid prompts with obvious right answers. “School should be four days a week.” “Zoos do more harm than good.” “Smartphones should be allowed in class.” These are real questions with real tension, and learners know it. That tension is the engine.
Use an image instead of a statement. Show a photograph — something ambiguous, something surprising, something from your current unit — and run the compass without a stated prompt. What excites you about what you see? What worries you? This is a wonderful way to open a new unit and gives you instant insight into what learners are bringing before you have taught a thing.
Run it on a real decision. A class trip. A project theme. A new classroom rule. When the Steps direction actually affects something, learners engage differently. This is one of the most direct ways to give genuine agency — and they rise to it every time.
Compare compasses over time. Run the routine at the start of a unit and save the responses. Run it again at the end on the same prompt. Then ask learners: what has changed? What has stayed the same? This is a beautiful bridge into the next routine in this series — I Used to Think / Now I Think — and it makes growth visible in a way a test never could.
Try It Yourself
Find something coming up in your classroom — a project, a new topic, a statement connected to your current unit. Something with genuine tension or uncertainty in it.
Hand learners a compass — four sections on a page, or four corners of the room. Give them the prompt. Give them a few minutes of quiet thinking time before anyone speaks.
Then listen.
Watch where the energy is. Watch what fills the Worries section — because that is where the real thinking is happening, and that is where you can do the most good. Watch for the student scribbling numbers in the margin because the scale problem is already eating at her.
And if the What? corner surprises you — if learners go there for reasons you did not anticipate — follow them. More input. More context. More comprehensible meaning. That is not a detour. That is the lesson.
If something unexpected, funny, or genuinely surprising comes out of it — I would love to hear about it in the comments. And if you are an audio learner, come and find me on YouTube where I walk through all of this — and more — in each video.
Thanks for being here. I hope your day is full of play. 🎲
Maureen | Playful Pedagogy
playfulpedagogy.com | YouTube
Next in the series: I Used to Think / Now I Think — the most honest reflection tool I know, and the one that never fails to surprise me.