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My identity as an educator-researcher has evolved through more than 15 years of working with diverse children in multiple settings and utilizing a variety of frameworks and theories to guide my practice. My degree in early childhood education gave me the opportunity to explore different approaches to primary education, specifically in preschool settings. Through this program I was introduced to the Reggio Emilia philosophy, which served as a provocation to unsettle what I thought I knew and to launch a deep, continuous self-reflection about my practice, the education system I worked within, and the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. More recently, I have begun to consider how the Reggio Emilia philosophy can be applied at the elementary school level. In particular, I have wanted to explore how pedagogical documentation can be used to foster students' intellectual engagement. I wondered: How does documentationcapturing, displaying, reflecting on, and utilizing evidence to guide learning-create opportunities for students to intellectually engage in school?This article emerged from my struggle to frame an individual philosophy of education while incorporating Reggio ideas into my practice. Specifically, it examines the connectivity I discovered between pedagogical documentation, student self-assessment, and intellectual engagement. After providing some background into the question that sparked my interrogation of my teaching philosophy, as well as the links between that philosophy and the pedagogical goals of my teaching context, the Calgary Board of Education, I discuss the ways I have used pedagogical documentation in my practice and the opportunities it has provided for student self-assessment.Linking practice examples to literature on the Reggio approach, I also discuss the incorporation of these teaching strategies as a means to foster students' intellectual engagement. After touching on challenges and struggles I've faced along the way, I conclude by highlighting the value of self-reflection as a vehicle to deepen my understanding of what it means to be an educator.