What is a Lit Circuit?

Christopher Morgan, Ed.D.
Nov 29, 2024
3 min read

Welcome to Lit Circuit! We provide resources to help you enhance your students’ reading, writing, and thinking skills.

As I sat to write this introduction to our company, I was immediately reminded of a story I recently read with my children about a boy who, inspired by a love of kites and swimming, tied a kite around himself and proceeded to leverage the wind to propel him across a lake. That very person grew to become an excellent innovator and statesman, responsible for or contributing to developments from which we still benefit today (bifocals, the US Postal Service, the Constitution!).

The inventive spirit of Benjamin Franklin encapsulates the lit circuit. We are convinced that all people are born with the capacity to “light their circuits,” and our mission is to assist educators with helping children do just that!

So, what exactly is a lit circuit? It is a metaphor for a thriving mind, which we believe consists of three attributes: curiosity, contemplation, and creativity.

Curiosity

I have experienced no greater joy as an educator than to witness a student emerge from the ubiquitous haze of apathy to ask thoughtful questions about content. In that moment, the transaction of information shifts from a unilateral to bilateral exchange, a mutual interest in the pursuit of truth and understanding. And on those occasions, for just a short while, I can sense both of our circuits lighting up.

There are telltale signs of one with a curious mind. They read regularly. They ask tons of questions and then take time to find answers. They wonder aloud about things many take for granted (like when my 9-year old son recently asked why God would create the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil if he didn’t want Adam and Eve to eat its fruit).

In short, it is apparent that they have an insatiable desire to understand, and they demonstrate a passion for learning!

Contemplation

We could search the whole of Earth, yet find the humble thought,

When cultivated, brings us the fulfillment that we sought.

Deep contemplation develops the mind in many ways, resulting in fundamental shifts in how one engages the world around them. Observables include:

Constant Evaluation. They rarely take new information at face value, probing for connections between new information and their prior knowledge and looking to resolve discrepancies.
Integration. They draw connections between disparate domains of their knowledge base and synthesize that information to form novel ideas.
Resourcefulness. Demonstrating an enhanced capacity for abstract thinking, they repurpose items as needed to solve problems.
Empathy. They learn through vicarious experience, being able to “pass over” into the thoughts and experiences of others and thus broadening their own understanding of a particular phenomenon (Dunne, 1969).

Creativity

I find it intriguing to observe our eldest child play with toys. He’s naturally inclined to storytelling, inventing elaborate plots of good versus evil all set within a world of endless possibility, complete with dialogue and roles for us to play (as long as we do exactly as he directs!). You can almost see the neurons firing at a blinding speed… the speed of imagination.

Creating is perhaps the most apparent observable of a lit circuit: Children (and adults for that matter) break out in song, write fan fiction, and doodle. They make villages in Minecraft, invent silly dances to elevator music, and generate rapid-fire solutions to problems.

A Foundational Circuit

Increasingly, we encounter a world in which rising generations of children are in danger of missing opportunities to light their circuits. How many of us educators have gone days or weeks seemingly teaching to the back wall? Why are our students so often disinterested in engaging with the vast universe of knowledge around them, and how do we as educators help them flip the switch to light their circuits?

We are convinced that a solution begins with developing the reading circuit. Even in the era of ever-present audio and video communication, being able to read well is still the key to unlocking the vast library of our human wisdom and thus supercharging the curiosity, contemplation, and creativity of a lit circuit.

We will explore the science of reading and its implications for the lit circuit in upcoming Lit Bits blogs, webinars, and our 2025 book club. We’re grateful you’re here! Please consider joining our mailing list to keep up with our upcoming offerings.