I really enjoyed looking at the John Smith map in class last night. I was really surprised by how much I had never noticed in the map. I have a copy hanging up at home and I’ve looked at it fairly often, but there were a lot of things I had never noticed. This reminded me that I’ll probably find something new every time I look at the map, much like whenever you find new details in a book you’ve read a hundred times before. I was also really excited to see what my students will find that I haven’t seen yet in the map. I would definitely like to use this with my students, at any grade level. To modify it for the younger students I might have them draw their own version of the map and write down or turn and talk with a partner any questions they have while drawing their own maps to get them to notice and explore as many details as possible. There’s a lot to be learned from this map that I think the younger students can also pick up on.
The questions that everyone came up with based on the map were also really interesting. I found myself coming up with questions I had never thought of while looking at it before, because I was trying to think about what my students might wonder about it. For example, where is Richmond on the map? Henrico County? I think I’d like to give students two copies of this map. Starting with the original, and then create a copy to give them after they’ve noticed and wondered for a while with some of their favorite landmarks such as Richmond, Henrico, Busch Gardens, Kings Dominion, etc. so that they can see how their world fits into John Smiths world. That could lead to a great discussion on change over time and how the people and terrain have changed from the time John Smith drew his map to the present.