Independent Thinker

"Imogen  is our Independent Thinker for the 2012-2013 first trimester. Imogen is fun to have in class and we enjoy her "thinking out loud." She can explain her abstract ideas in a way that is interesting and exciting. Because Imogen is eager to share her gift with all students in the class, she has many friends. If you ask Imogen how she arrived at an answer, she will give you details and descriptions that you had never thought of. We look to Imogen to be our role model for the Independent Thinker."

A Moveable Feast

Imogen says she's half Paris.

(She's half British.)

Thanksgiving

The Kids' Table

The Same Boat

Poverty Isn't Just a Single-Parents' Problem

A House By The Sea

Don't Patch Anything

Advice to Myself

by Louise Erdrich

Leave the dishes. Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator

and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.

Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.

Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.

Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.

Don't even sew on a button.

Let the wind have its way, then the earth

that invades as dust and then the dead

foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.

Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.

Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles

or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry

who uses whose toothbrush or if anything

matches, at all.

Except one word to another. Or a thought.

Pursue the authentic—decide first

what is authentic,

then go after it with all your heart.

Your heart, that place

you don't even think of cleaning out.

That closet stuffed with savage mementos.

Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth

or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner

again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,

or weep over anything at all that breaks.

Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons

in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life

and talk to the dead

who drift in through the screened windows, who collect

patiently on the tops of food jars and books.

Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything

except what destroys

the insulation between yourself and your experience

or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters

this ruse you call necessity.

"Advice to Myself" by Louise Erdrich from Original Fire. © Harper Collins Publishers, 2003.
From The Writer's Almanac

A Little Sparkle

Who You Are

How Shining You Are

I've started telling my daughters I'm beautiful
(A Must Read)

That Wild Season

No Home But You

"Amy"

Come As You Are

Imogen¾as "a girl dressed in pink"¾
prepares to take a whack at a pumpkin full of treats.