Academics
CircleQuest
Five readers, one passage, five jobs. Someone names the main event, someone links it to the world, someone asks a question the text can answer, someone pins the hard word, someone pictures the vivid moment. Nobody reads the whole thing alone - the full understanding is what you get when you put the slices together. Spot the claim that overreaches (sounds like a reading but invents a detail), and see why one vivid image, read by itself, can point the wrong way. A tiny, deterministic literature-circle engine, no internet. Ages 9-14.
#1f8a80 Distributed-narrative cast
Meet the cast
CircleQuest's crew ARE the roles of a literature circle - the cast IS the curriculum: each character IS one reader's job, and the whole understanding is the union of their slices, never any one of them alone. Summ the Summarizer names the main event, the one sentence the passage is really about. Linker the Connector links a detail in the text to something true in the world - but only a link the circle can point to. Asker the Questioner asks the questions the text can actually answer, not the ones it can't. Lex the Word-wizard hunts the single hardest word and pins the meaning the sentence demands, not the first guess. Picto the Illustrator sees the most vivid moment - and is the first to remind the circle that the loudest picture, read alone, can point the wrong way. Circle, the mentor, keeps the circle turning: every role gets a turn, and no claim stays unless someone can show it on the page. Painted portraits + storybooks are a tracked follow-on (R-WEB-CLONE-SPAWN-TRACKED); a text-only crew + flat, deterministic on-device literature-circle reasoning ship now - nothing leaves the device.
Summ
The Summarizer - keeps one eye on the whole page and names the main event, the single sentence the passage is really about
Linker
The Connector - links a detail in the text to something true in the world, but only a link the circle can point to on the page
Asker
The Questioner - asks the inference questions the text can answer, and knows the difference between a grounded question and a guess
Lex
The Word-wizard - finds the single hardest word and pins the meaning this sentence demands, not the first meaning that comes to mind
Picto
The Illustrator - pictures the most vivid moment, and warns the circle that a loud image, read alone, can mislead about the gist
Circle
(Mentor) The facilitator who keeps every role taking its turn and lets no claim stand unless a reader can show it on the page
What's inside
Learning goal
Five readers, one passage, five jobs. Someone names the main event, someone links it to the world, someone asks a question the text can answer, someone pins the hard word, someone pictures the vivid moment. Nobody reads the whole thing alone - the full understanding is what you get when you put the slices together. Spot the claim that overreaches (sounds like a reading but invents a detail), and see why one vivid image, read by itself, can point the wrong way. A tiny, deterministic literature-circle engine, no internet. Ages 9-14.
Question kits
16 curriculum-aligned kits × 25 questions = 400 questions per app, mapped to recognized standards.
On-device AI mentor
FoundationModels-powered hints, feedback, and adaptive difficulty — all running locally.
Mentored by Circle — on-device AI, no data leaves the device.
How CircleQuest handles your kid's data
- ✅ All progress, settings, and AI-generated content stays on the device
- ✅ No analytics, no tracking, no third-party SDKs
- ✅ No ads, no in-app purchases — you pay once
- ✅ No personal information collected from children — in line with COPPA (updated by the 2026 FTC amendments)
- ✅ Parental controls + session limits + content filters built in
CircleQuest runs on ForgeKit — the open-source Swift Package Manager framework that powers every Spark & Anvil app. ForgeKit ensures consistent accessibility, COPPA compliance, and design language across the portfolio, so your kid's progress and preferences feel coherent across every app they touch.
Coming to the App Store
CircleQuest is in active development. Email us to hear when it ships — no marketing, no spam, just a one-shot launch announcement.
Email me at launch