Boice- 40-48

Cultivating imagination to me means conscouisly thinking if the ideas unique to the writer- ideas that the writer can bring to the table that helps create ah ha moments.  I think that filing ideas away is an interesting place to start.  In our middle school writing classes, we ask students to keep a composition notebook (yes, we love them too).  We encourage them to "live as writers" , collecting pieces of their lives to keep in their notebooks.  They periodically search through their notebooks for common threads to use as seed ideas.  The filing idea to me, is a more sophisticated way to do this.   I want to also try the double entry journal idea.   The second column forces original thinking grounded in whatever is read.   Great use of that graphic organizer.